satisfactory and remains unpublished.

CXIV. THE WHITTIER BIRTHDAY SPEECH

It was the night of December 17, 1877, that Mark Twain made his
unfortunate speech at the dinner given by the Atlantic staff to John G.
Whittier on his seventieth birthday. Clemens had attended a number of
the dinners which the Atlantic gave on one occasion or another, and had
provided a part of the entertainment. It is only fair to say that his
after-dinner speeches at such times had been regarded as very special
events, genuine triumphs of humor and delivery. But on this particular
occasion he determined to outdo himself, to prepare something unusual,
startling, something altogether unheard of.

When Mark Twain had an impulse like that it was possible for it to
result in something dangerous, especially in those earlier days. This
time it produced a bombshell; not just an ordinary bombshell, or even a
twelve-inch projectile, but a shell of planetary size. It was a sort
of hoax-always a doubtful plaything--and in this case it brought even
quicker and more terrible retribution than usual. It was an imaginary
presentation of three disreputable frontier tramps who at some time had
imposed themselves on a lonely miner as Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes,
quoting apposite selections from their verses to the accompaniment of
cards and drink, and altogether conducting themselves in a most unsavory
fashion. At the end came the enlightenment that these were not what they
pretended to be, but only impostors--disgusting frauds. A feature like
that would be a doubtful thing to try in any cultured atmosphere. The
thought of associating, ever so remotely, those three old bummers which
he had conjured up with the venerable and venerated Emerson, Longfellow,
and Holmes, the Olympian trinity, seems ghastly enough to-day, and
must have seemed even more so then. But Clemens, dazzled by the rainbow
splendor of his conception, saw in it only a rare colossal humor, which
would fairly lift and bear his hearers along on a tide of mirth. He did
not show his effort to any one beforehand. He wanted its full beauty to
burst upon the entire company as a surprise.

It did that. Howells was toastmaster, and when he came to present
Clemens he took particular pains to introduce him as one of his foremost
contributors and dearest friends. Here, he said, was "a humorist who
never left you hanging you head for having enjoyed his joke."

Thirty years later Clemens himself