These are fine laurels, but they will not last. A time is coming when some of them will wither. A day will come when a mere scratch of Mr. Lincoln’s pen will outsell a whole basketful of my letters. A time will come when a scratch of the pens of those immortal soldiers, Sherman and Sheridan, will outsell a thousand scratches of mine, and so I shall enjoy my supremacy now, while I may. I shall read that clipping over forty or fifty times, now, while it is new and true, and let the desolating future take care of itself.

I omit this morning’s stirring news from Russia to make room for this half-column clipping, because the clipping is about me.

 

MARK TWAIN TALKS TO COLLEGE WOMEN

Says He’ll Only Speak to Alumnae After This.

TELLS THAT TWICHELL STORY

Five Hundred Women Shook Hands with Him and Showered Him with Pretty Speeches.

The Women’s University Club and Mark Twain entertained each other yesterday. The club gave a reception, with the author as the guest of honor, and the entire club and a good many of its relatives and friends turned out to meet him. There were 500 of them at least, and each one had something to say to Mr. Clemens when she shook hands with him.

Some one who was looking on said that a good many “repeated” and went up twice to shake hands.

Mr. Clemens in the course of a long life has had other experiences in which college girls have had a part, and he was somewhat reminiscent. The girls he talked to yesterday were some of them grandchildren of other girls he had met in other days.

“I don’t have to say anything, do I?” said one girl, who had not been able to think up an interesting remark, as she shook hands with the guest of honor.

“No, indeed,” said Mr. Clemens, “I’m shy that way myself.”

“I have been waiting since I was three years old for this,” said another girl. “It was as long ago as that that my father pointed out the pictures in ‘Innocents Abroad’ to me.”

“I bring a message from two little girls,” said an older woman. “They want you to write another story as nice as ‘The Prince and the Pauper,’ and send them the first copy,” and Mark Twain gayly promised that he would.

Mr. Clemens had promised to speak at the club, but, having a cold, asked to be excused. He was persuaded, however, to “tell a yarn.”

They brought in a little platform that had been in readiness for the address, but he was not satisfied with it.

“I don’t think that is high enough,” he said, “because I can’t tell what people are thinking unless I see their faces.” Then at his request they brought a chair, which was placed on the platform, and he stood on it. The veteran author never spoke to a more appreciative audience.

“I am not here, young ladies, to make a speech,” he said, “but what may look like one in the distance. I don’t dare to make a speech, for I haven’t made any preparations, and if I tried it on an empty stomach—I mean an empty mind—I don’t know what iniquity I might commit.

“On the 19th of this month, at Carnegie Hall, I am going to take formal leave of the platform for ever and ever, as far as appearing for pay is concerned and before people who have to pay to get in, but I have not given up for other occasions.

“I shall now proceed to infest the platform all the time under conditions that I like—when I am not paid to appear and when no one has to pay to get in, and I shall only talk to audiences of college girls. I have labored for the public good for many years, and now I am going to talk for my own contentment.”

Then Mr. Clemens told his “yarn.”

It was a yarn about a walking tour with the Rev. Joseph Twichell that the public has found entertaining. The college women appeared to be entertained by it.

MARK TWAIN ADORED BY THE COLLEGE GIRLS AT WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY CLUB.

MARK TWAIN WAS WREATHED IN GIRLS.

Five Hundred at Women’s University Club Hung About Their Universal Sweetheart.

COULDN’T SEE THEM ALL, SO HE MOUNTED A CHAIR.

Fed Him on Ices to Keep Up His Drooping Energies Between “Repeating” Delegations.

Mark Twain has the college-girl habit!

He is not discriminating about the college. He loves them all! He admitted it yesterday at the Women’s University Club to about five hundred of them. If he melted into momentary tenderness over Barnard he excused it by saying that, if not his greatest, it was his latest love.

From 4 to 6 Mr. Clemens was wreathed about with girls, and as happy as a king. He looked into their faces with quizzical eyes, laid a detaining hand on a shoulder now and again, while he invented a story to draw a smile from a pair of pretty lips. And when he could not see enough of them he mounted a chair to have his horizon bounded by girls—girls in Easter bonnets and charming frocks; girls all blushes and delight in the presence of their universal sweetheart.

His Heart Is True.

“On the 19th of this month,” said Mark, “I am going to take my formal leave of the platform forevermore at Carnegie Hall. That is as far as appearing for pay is concerned. But I have not really left the platform at all. I shall proceed to get on it as often as I desire when the conditions are what I like. I mean when nobody who pays can get there, and nobody is in the house except young ladies from the colleges.”

Shouts interrupted him.

“I have labored for the public good,” continued Mr. Clemens, shaking his leonine mane prodigiously, “for thirty-five or forty years. I propose to work for my personal contentment the rest of the time.” His smile included them all. Mr. Clemens had not intended to address his girls collectively.