In fact all things that are said have been said before. Moreover they have been said many millions of times. This is a sad thing for the human race that sits up nine nights in the week to admire its own originality. The race has always been able to think well of itself, and it doesn’t like people who throw bricks at its naïve self-appreciation. It is sensitive upon this point. The other day I furnished a sentiment in response to a man’s request—to wit:

“The noblest work of God?” Man.

“Who found it out?” Man.

I thought it was very good, and smart, but the other person didn’t.

But I must get back to the back of the world and look east and west again at those suns. One of them is Miss Mary Lawton, an American young lady who has been training herself for the stage; and at last we hope and believe we see an opening for her. We strongly believe that hers will be a great name some day. Fay Davis, a famous and popular actress who is playing the chief rôle in a serious and impressive drama called—never mind the name, I have forgotten it—wishes to retire from the piece as soon as a competent successor can be found; and at Daniel Frohman’s suggestion I cabled London two or three days ago and asked Charles Frohman if he would let Miss Lawton try that part. That is the sun which is apparently about to rise; the sun which is about to set is Ellen Terry, who has been a queen of the English stage for fifty years, and will retire from it on the 28th of this month, which will be the fiftieth anniversary. She will retire in due form at a great banquet in London, and cablegrams meet for the occasion will flow in upon the banqueteers from old friends of hers in America and other formerly distant regions of the earth—there are no distant regions now. The American cablegrams are being collected by a committee in New York, and by request I have furnished mine. To do these things by cable, at twenty-five cents a word, is the modern way and the only way. They could go by post at no expense, but it wouldn’t be good form. [Privately I will remark that they do go by mail—dated to suit the requirements.]

Age has not withered, nor custom staled, the admiration and affection I have felt for you so many many years. I lay them at your honored feet with the strength and freshness of their youth upon them undiminished.

She is a lovely character, as was also Sir Henry Irving, who lately departed this life. I first knew them thirty-four years ago in London, and thenceforth held them in high esteem and affection.

When I ushered in that large figure, a while ago, about the world’s back and the rising and sinking suns, and exposed a timid doubt as to the freshness of that great figure, that timidity was the result of an experience of mine a quarter of a century ago. One day a splendid inspiration burst in my head and scattered my brains all over the farm—we were spending the summer at Quarry Farm that summer. That explosion fertilized the farm so that it yielded double crops for seven years. That wonderful inspiration of mine was what seemed to me to be the most novel and striking basic idea for a play that had ever been imagined. I was going to write that play at once, and astonish the world with it; and I did, indeed, begin upon the work immediately. Then it occurred to me that as I was not well acquainted with the history of the drama it might be well for me to make sure that this idea of mine was really new before I went further. So I wrote Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford, and asked him if the idea had ever been used on the stage. Hammond Trumbull was the learned man of America at that time, and had been so regarded by both hemispheres for a good many years. I knew that he would know all about it. I waited a week and then his answer came. It covered several great pages of foolscap written in Trumbull’s small and beautiful hand, and the pages consisted merely of a list of titles of plays in which that new idea of mine had been used, in about sixty-seven countries. I do not remember how many thousand plays were mentioned in the list. I only remember that he hadn’t written down all the titles, but had only furnished enough for a sample. And I also remember that the earliest play in the invoice was a Chinese one and was upwards of twenty-five hundred years old.

That figure of mine—standing on the back of the world and watching the rising and the declining suns—is really stately, is really fine, but I am losing confidence in it. Hammond Trumbull is dead. But if he were with us now he could probably furnish me with a few reams of samples.

Orion Clemens—Resumed.

There were several candidates for all the offices in the gift of the new State of Nevada save two—United States Senator, and Secretary of State. Nye was certain to get a Senatorship, and Orion was so sure to get the Secretaryship that no one but him was named for that office. But he was hit with one of his spasms of virtue on the very day that the Republican party was to make its nominations in the Convention, and refused to go near the Convention. He was urged, but all persuasions failed. He said his presence there would be an unfair and improper influence, and that if he was to be nominated the compliment must come to him as a free and unspotted gift. This attitude would have settled his case for him without further effort, but he had another attack of virtue on the same day, that made it absolutely sure.