What, for instance, could be more naive than the following remark I heard made by Mark Twain at a dinner in New York, one evening? It was given, of course, in his inimitable drawl:
"I was in the war too—for a fortnight—but I found I was on the strong side—so I retired—to make the fight even."
There is no country where you hear so many good anecdotes, and no country where they are so well told.
The Americans are delightful raconteurs; they are past-masters in the art of making those light, graceful, witty little speeches, which give to their dinners such a unique charm. Then the humour is delicate, the wit of the brightest. Irony and elegance combine to make these discourses veritable little literary gems. The Americans have their heads full of anecdotes and reminiscences; and it little matters in honour of whom or of what the dinner is given, they are sure to be ready with anecdotes and reminiscences that are suitable to the occasion.
The chronicler who draws upon his fertile brain for an interesting column for his paper every day may choose his own subject, and the task, difficult as it is, is not insurmountable; but to be able, night after night, throughout a whole season, to make a witty speech on a given subject, not chosen by the speaker—this appears to me to be a wonderful feat. Nevertheless, it is done every year by a goodly number of Americans, foremost among whom must be named Mr. Chauncey Depew and General Horace Porter. A banquet is not complete without the presence of one of these delightful orators.
Here is a specimen of General Porter's drollery—a portrait of an old typical Puritan, given at a "New England" dinner.
"The old Puritan was not the most rollicking, the jolliest, the most playful of men. He at times amused himself sadly. He was given to a mild disregard of the conventionalities. He had suppressed bear-baiting, not, it is believed, because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the audience. He found the Indians were the proprietors of the land, and he felt himself constrained to move against them with his gun, with a view to increasing the number of absentee landlords. He found Indians on one side and witches on the other. He was surrounded with troubles. He had to keep the Indians under fire and the witches over it. These were some of the things that reconciled that good man to sudden death. He never let the sun go down upon his wrath, but he, no doubt, often wished himself in that region near the Pole, where the sun does not go down for six months at a time, and gives wrath a fair chance to materialize. He was a thoughtful man. He spent his days inventing snow ploughs, and his evenings in sipping hot rum, and ruminating upon the probable strength of the future prohibition vote. Those were times when the wives remonstrated with their husbands regarding the unfortunate and disappointing results of too much drink, particularly when it led the men to go out and shoot at Indians—and miss them. These men generally began drinking on account of a bite of a snake, and usually had to quit on account of attacks from the same reptiles."
General Porter was good enough to introduce me to a New York audience on one occasion.
"Ladies and gentlemen," began the General, without relaxing a muscle of his face, "I claim your indulgence on behalf of the speaker who is going to address you; he has to speak in a language not his own, and, besides, he has not the resource of some of our countrymen, who, when their throats are tired, can speak through their noses."