This was a sort of revelation to me. I had been wandering through the Abbey, never imagining but that its shows were created only for us--the people of the nineteenth century. But here is a man (become a show himself now, and a curiosity) to whom all these things were sights and wonders a hundred and seventy-five years ago. When curious idlers from the country and from foreign lands came here to look, he showed them old Sebert’s tomb and those of the other old worthies I have been speaking of, and called them ancient and venerable; and he showed them Charles II’s tomb as the newest and latest novelty he had; and he was doubtless present at the funeral. Three hundred years before his time some ancestor of his, perchance, used to point out the ancient marvels, in the immemorial way and then say: “This, gentlemen, is the tomb of his late Majesty Edward the Third--and I wish I could see him alive and hearty again, as I saw him twenty years ago; yonder is the tomb of Sebert the Saxon king--he has been lying there well on to eight hundred years, they say. And three hundred years before this party, Westminster was still a show, and Edward the Confessor’s grave was a novelty of some thirty years’ standing--but old “Sebert” was hoary and ancient still, and people who spoke of Alfred the Great as a comparatively recent man pondered over Sebert’s grave and tried to take in all the tremendous meaning of it when the “toome shower” said, “This man has lain here well nigh five hundred years.” It does seem as if all the generations that have lived and died since the world was created have visited Westminster to stare and wonder--and still found ancient things there. And some day a curiously clad company may arrive here in a balloon ship from some remote corner of the globe, and as they follow the verger among the monuments they may hear him say: “This is the tomb of Victoria the Good Queen; battered and uncouth as it looks, it once was a wonder of magnificence--but twelve hundred years work a deal of damage to these things.”
As we turned toward the door the moonlight was beaming in at the windows, and it gave to the sacred place such an air of restfulness and peace that Westminster was no longer a grisly museum of moldering vanities, but her better and worthier self--the deathless mentor of a great nation, the guide and encourager of right ambitions, the preserver of just fame, and the home and refuge for the nation’s best and bravest when their work is done.
TWO MARK TWAIN EDITORIALS
(Written 1869 and 1870, for the Buffalo Express, of which Mark Twain became editor and part owner)
I
“SALUTATORY”
Being a stranger, it would be immodest and unbecoming in me to suddenly and violently assume the associate editorship of the Buffalo Express without a single explanatory word of comfort or encouragement to the unoffending patrons of the paper, who are about to be exposed to constant attacks of my wisdom and learning. But this explanatory word shall be as brief as possible. I only wish to assure parties having a friendly interest in the prosperity of the journal, that I am not going to hurt the paper deliberately and intentionally at any time. I am not going to introduce any startling reforms, or in any way attempt to make trouble. I am simply going to do my plain, unpretending duty, when I cannot get out of it; I shall work diligently and honestly and faithfully at all times and upon all occasions, when privation and want shall compel me to do it; in writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience; I shall witheringly rebuke all forms of crime and misconduct, except when committed by the party inhabiting my own vest; I shall not make use of slang or vulgarity upon any occasion or under any circumstances, and shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. Indeed, upon second thought, I will not even use it then, for it is unchristian, inelegant, and degrading--though to speak truly I do not see how house rent and taxes are going to be discussed worth a cent without it. I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political editor who is already excellent, and only needs to serve a term in the penitentiary in order to be perfect. I shall not write any poetry, unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers.
Such is my platform. I do not see any earthly use in it, but custom is law, and custom must be obeyed, no matter how much violence it may do to one’s feelings. And this custom which I am slavishly following now is surely one of the least necessary that ever came into vogue. In private life a man does not go and trumpet his crime before he commits it, but your new editor is such an important personage that he feels called upon to write a “salutatory” at once, and he puts into it all that he knows, and all that he don’t know, and some things he thinks he knows but isn’t certain of. And he parades his list of wonders which he is going to perform; of reforms which he is going to introduce, and public evils which he is going to exterminate; and public blessings which he is going to create; and public nuisances which he is going to abate. He spreads this all out with oppressive solemnity over a column and a half of large print, and feels that the country is saved. His satisfaction over it, something enormous. He then settles down to his miracles and inflicts profound platitudes and impenetrable wisdom upon a helpless public as long as they can stand it, and then they send him off consul to some savage island in the Pacific in the vague hope that the cannibals will like him well enough to eat him. And with an inhumanity which is but a fitting climax to his career of persecution, instead of packing his trunk at once he lingers to inflict upon his benefactors a “valedictory.” If there is anything more uncalled for than a “salutatory,” it is one of those tearful, blubbering, long-winded “valedictories”--wherein a man who has been annoying the public for ten years cannot take leave of them without sitting down to cry a column and a half. Still, it is the custom to write valedictories, and custom should be respected. In my secret heart I admire my predecessor for declining to print a valedictory, though in public I say and shall continue to say sternly, it is custom and he ought to have printed one. People never read them any more than they do the “salutatories,” but nevertheless he ought to have honored the old fossil--he ought to have printed a valedictory. I said as much to him, and he replied:
“I have resigned my place--I have departed this life--I am journalistically dead, at present, ain’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Well, wouldn’t you consider it disgraceful in a corpse to sit up and comment on the funeral?”