; MA^k" jwirofdN " babibs;

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9086, 19 May 1891, Page 4

MARK TWAIN ON BABIES.

At a dinner given to General Grant the fifteenth and last- regular toast was " The Babies. As they" comfort us in our sorrows, let us not forget them hi our festivities;" and to this Samuel L. Clemens responded. ' .He said— l like that. We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. ,We have not all been generals or' poets! or statesmen; but- when the toast works down to The Babies we stand on common ground— Slaughter) for we have all been babies. (Renewed laughter.).' It is a shame that for a thousand years the -world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby. (Laughter.) If you will stop and think a minute— if you will go back fifty or a hundred years to your early married life (laughter) and contemplate your first baby you will remember that he' amounted to a ~gteat deal, and even something over. (Roars.) You soldiers all knowthat when that little fellow arrived at family head-quarters, you had to hand in your resignation. (Laughter.) He took entire command. You became his lackey — his mere body.-servant — - (laughter) — and yon had to stand around, too. (Renewed laughter.) He was not a commander who made allowance for time, distance, weather, or anything else. (Convulsive screams.) You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not. (Roars.) And there was only one form of machinery in his manual of tactics, and that was the quick. (Shouts.) He treated you with every sprt of insolence said disrespect — (laughter) —^and the bravest of y.ou didn't dare say a word. (Great -laughter.) You could face the death storm of Donelson and Vicksberg, and give back' blow for blow, but when he clawed your whiskers,- and pulled your hair, and twisted your nose, you had to take it (Roars.)r r >Vhen the thunders of war we're sounding" in your ears you set your faces towards the batteries, and advanced with steady tread ; but when he turned on the terrors of his war-whoop — (laughter) — you advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance too. (Renewed laughter.) When he called for soothing syrup did you venture to throw out any side remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman ? (Boisterous laughter.) , No. You got up and got it. (Great laughter.) When he ordered his pap bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back ? (Laughter.) Not you. (Renewed laughter-) You went ! to work and wanned it. (Shouts.) You even descended. so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff — (laughter)— just to seeMt was right — three parts water to one of milk — (tumultuous laughter) — a touch of sugar to modify the colic — (laughter) and a drop of peppermint to Mil those imiribrtal hiccoughs. (Roars.) I can taste that stuff. (Laughter.) And how many things you learned as v you went ■ along 1 Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin — simply wind on the stomach, my friends. (Shouts.) .If the baby proposed to take a walk" at his usual hour — two o'clock in the morning — (laughter)— didn't you' rise 1 up promptly and remark, with a mental addition that would not improve a Sunday school book — (much laughter) — that was j the very thing you were about to propose ' yourself? (Great roars.) Oh, you were under good discipline — (laughter) — and as j you went faltering up and down the room in your undress uniform — (laughter) — you not only prattled undignified baby-talk, but even turned up your martial voices and tried to sing — •• Rock-a-by.-baby. in a tree top," for instance. (Great laughter.) What ! a spectacle for- an army of the Tennessee { (Laughter.) And what an affliction for the neighbours, too, for it is not everybody; within a mile around that likes military music at three o'clock in the morning ! (Laughter.) And when you had been keep- i ing this sort of thing up two or three hours, j and your little velvet head intimated that J nothing suited him like exercise and noise — (laughter; "go on") — what did you do? You simply went on until you dropped into the last ditch. (Laughter.) The idea that, I a baby doesn't amount to anything ! Why,' one baby is just a house and a front yard full by itself. (Laughter.) One baby can furnish more business than you and your whole interior department can attend to. (Laughter.) He is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. (Laughter.) Do what you please, you can't make him stay on the reservation. (Great shouts.) Sufficient unto the day is one baby. (Laughter.) As long as you are in your, right mind, don't you ever pray for twins. (Laughter.) Mr Clemens is the father of a pair. Twins amount to permanent riot. (Laughter.) And there ain't any difference between triplets and an insurrection. (Uproarious shouts.) 'Yes, it was high tune for a toast to the masses to recognise the importance of the babies. (Laughter.) Think what is in store for.thcpresent crop ! Fifty years from now. we shall all bejdead. I trust — (laughter); — and then this flag, if it still survives (and let us hope it may) will be floating over a republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase. Our present schooner of state — (laughter) — will have grown into a political leviathan — a Great Eastern. The cradled babies of to-day will be on deck. Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave. a*sbig contract on; their bands. (Laughter.) , Among the three orv-four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for 1 ages as sacred things if we could know which ones they are. In some of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething — (laughter) • — think of it and putting in a word of dead earnest, inarticulated but perfectly justifiable profanity over it too. (Laughter.)' 'In another the future renowned astronomer is bunking at the shining milky way with a liquid" interest, poor little chap, wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet nurse. (Laughter.) In another, the future great historian is lying, and doubtless will continue to lie — (laughter)' — until his earthly mission is ended. t In another, the future president is busying himself with; no profounder problem of statt , than what; the mischief has become of his hair so early — (laughter) — and in a mighty . array of other • cradles there are now some '■ 60,000 future office-seekers, getting rqady to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a second time. And in still one more cradle,, somewhere under the flag, the future I 'illustrious commander-in- , chief of the American armies is so little bur- • dened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities, ' as to be giving his' whole : strategic^mind at this .moment ,to trying, to ' nn'd out some way to get his big toe into his mouth — (laughter) — an achievement which, : meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of the evening turned his attention to some ■56 years ago ; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few • who will doubt that he succeeded. (Laughter and applause.) ■ ' -. " Only the other day," says a newspaper ; correspondent, " I sat opposite to a gentleman at a fashionable restaurant, who, after sampling the bread, which was slightly stab, said to the waiter,' in a tone of the 'utmost seriousness, • Wasn't this baked in the 'reign of Queen Elizabeth?' And the waiter, with equal solemnity, replied, ' No, sir'; it was baked several years after that.' "