Mark Twain - Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories

I. No, do not bring any more; I only want to know where they are from—where they are raised.

He. Yes? (with imperturbable mien and rising inflection.)

I. Yes. Can you tell me what country they are from?

He. Yes? (blandly, with rising inflection.)

I. (disheartened). They are very nice.

He. Good night. (Bows, and retires, quite satisfied with himself.)

That young man could have become a good English scholar by taking the right sort of pains, but he was French, and wouldn't do that. How different is the case with our people; they utilize every means that offers. There are some alleged French Protestants in Paris, and they built a nice little church on one of the great avenues that lead away from the Arch of Triumph, and proposed to listen to the correct thing, preached in the correct way, there, in their precious French tongue, and be happy. But their little game does not succeed. Our people are always there ahead of them Sundays, and take up all the room. When the minister gets up to preach, he finds his house full of devout foreigners, each ready and waiting, with his little book in his hand—a morocco-bound Testament, apparently. But only apparently; it is Mr. Bellows's admirable and exhaustive little French-English dictionary, which in look and binding and size is just like a Testament and those people are there to study French. The building has been nicknamed "The Church of the Gratis French Lesson."

These students probably acquire more language than general information, for I am told that a French sermon is like a French speech—it never names a historical event, but only the date of it; if you are not up in dates, you get left. A French speech is something like this:

Comrades, citizens, brothers, noble parts of the only sublime and

perfect nation, let us not forget that the 21st January cast off our

chains; that the 10th August relieved us of the shameful presence of

foreign spies; that the 5th September was its own justification

before heaven and humanity; that the 18th Brumaire contained the

seeds of its own punishment; that the 14th July was the mighty voice

of liberty proclaiming the resurrection, the new day, and inviting

the oppressed peoples of the earth to look upon the divine face of

France and live; and let us here record our everlasting curse

against the man of the 2d December, and declare in thunder tones,

the native tones of France, that but for him there had been no 17th

March in history, no 12th October, no 19th January, no 22d April,

no 16th November, no 30th September, no 2d July, no 14th February,

no 29th June, no 15th August, no 31st May—that but for him, France

the pure, the grand, the peerless, had had a serene and vacant

almanac to-day!

I have heard of one French sermon which closed in this odd yet eloquent way:

My hearers, we have sad cause to remember the man of the 13th

January. The results of the vast crime of the 13th January have

been in just proportion to the magnitude of the set itself. But for

it there had been no 30 November—sorrowful spectacle! The grisly

deed of the 16th June had not been done but for it, nor had the man

of the 16th June known existence; to it alone the 3d September was

due, also the fatal 12th October. Shall we, then, be grateful for

the 13th January, with its freight of death for you and me and all

that breathe? Yes, my friends, for it gave us also that which had

never come but for it, and it alone—the blessed 25th December.

It may be well enough to explain, though in the case of many of my readers this will hardly be necessary. The man of the 13th January is Adam; the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the sorrowful spectacle of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the grisly deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel; the act of the 3d September was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of October, the last mountain-tops disappeared under the flood. When you go to church in France, you want to take your almanac with you—annotated.

[Left out of "A Tramp Abroad" because its authenticity seemed

doubtful, and could not at that time be proved.—M. T.]

More than a thousand years ago this small district was a kingdom—a little bit of a kingdom, a sort of dainty little toy kingdom, as one might say. It was far removed from the jealousies, strifes, and turmoils of that old warlike day, and so its life was a simple life, its people a gentle and guileless race; it lay always in a deep dream of peace, a soft Sabbath tranquillity; there was no malice, there was no envy, there was no ambition, consequently there were no heart-burnings, there was no unhappiness in the land.

In the course of time the old king died and his little son Hubert came to the throne. The people's love for him grew daily; he was so good and so pure and so noble, that by and by his love became a passion, almost a worship. Now at his birth the soothsayers had diligently studied the stars and found something written in that shining book to this effect:

In Hubert's fourteenth year a pregnant event will happen; the animal

whose singing shall sound sweetest in Hubert's ear shall save

Hubert's life. So long as the king and the nation shall honor this

animal's race for this good deed, the ancient dynasty shall not fail

of an heir, nor the nation know war or pestilence or poverty. But

beware an erring choice!

All through the king's thirteenth year but one thing was talked of by the soothsayers, the statesmen, the little parliament, and the general people. That one thing was this: How is the last sentence of the prophecy to be understood? What goes before seems to mean that the saving animal will choose itself at the proper time; but the closing sentence seems to mean that the king must choose beforehand, and say what singer among the animals pleases him best, and that if he choose wisely the chosen animal will save his life, his dynasty, his people, but that if he should make "an erring choice"—beware!

By the end of the year there were as many opinions about this matter as there had been in the beginning; but a majority of the wise and the simple were agreed that the safest plan would be for the little king to make choice beforehand, and the earlier the better. So an edict was sent forth commanding all persons who owned singing creatures to bring them to the great hall of the palace in the morning of the first day of the new year. This command was obeyed. When everything was in readiness for the trial, the king made his solemn entry with the great officers of the crown, all clothed in their robes of state. The king mounted his golden throne and prepared to give judgment. But he presently said:—

"These creatures all sing at once; the noise is unendurable; no one can choose in such a turmoil. Take them all away, and bring back one at a time."

This was done. One sweet warbler after another charmed the young king's ear and was removed to make way for another candidate. The precious minutes slipped by; among so many bewitching songsters he found it hard to choose, and all the harder because the promised penalty for an error was so terrible that it unsettled his judgment and made him afraid to trust his own ears. He grew nervous and his face showed distress. His ministers saw this, for they never took their eyes from him a moment. Now they began to say in their hearts:

"He has lost courage—the cool head is gone—he will err—he and his dynasty and his people are doomed!"

At the end of an hour the king sat silent awhile, and then said:—

"Bring back the linnet."

The linnet trilled forth her jubilant music. In the midst of it the king was about to uplift his scepter in sign of choice, but checked himself and said:—