The Autobiography of Mark Twain Mark Twain (best beach reads .TXT) 📖

military figure; talks smoothly, in well-constructed English⁠—I may say perfectly constructed English. His talk is full of interest and bristling with points, but as there are no emphases scattered through it anywhere, and as there is no animation in it, it soon becomes oppressive by its monotony and it makes the listener drowsy. Twichell had to step on my foot once or twice. The late Bill Nye once said, “I have been told that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” That felicitous description of a something which so many people have tried to describe, and couldn’t, does seem to fit the general’s manner of speech exactly. His talk is much better than it is. No, that is not the idea⁠—there seems to be a lack there somewhere. Maybe it is another case of the sort just quoted. Maybe Nye would say that “it is better than it sounds.” I think that is it. His talk does not sound entertaining, but it is distinctly entertaining.

Sickles lost a leg at Gettysburg, and I remember Twichell’s account of that circumstance. He talked about it on one of our long walks, a great many years ago, and, although the details have passed out of my memory, I still carry the picture in my mind as presented by Twichell. The leg was taken off by a cannon ball. Twichell and others carried the general out of the battle, and they placed him on a bed made of boughs, under a tree. There was no surgeon present, and Twichell and Rev. Father O’Hagan, a Catholic priest, made a makeshift tourniquet and stopped the gush of blood⁠—checked it, perhaps is the right term. A newspaper correspondent appeared first. Gen. Sickles considered himself a dying man, and (if Twichell is as truthful a person as the character of his cloth requires him to be) General Sickles put aside everything connected with a future world in order to go out of this one in becoming style. And so he dictated his “last words” to that newspaper correspondent. That was Twichell’s idea⁠—I remember it well⁠—that the general, no doubt influenced by the fact that several people’s last words have been so badly chosen⁠—whether by accident or intention⁠—that they have outlived all the rest of the man’s fame, was moved to do his last words in a form calculated to petrify and preserve them for the future generations. Twichell quoted that speech. I have forgotten what it was, now, but it was well chosen for its purpose.

Now when we sat there in the general’s presence, listening to his monotonous talk⁠—it was about himself, and is always about himself, and always seems modest and unexasperating, inoffensive⁠—it seemed to me that he was just the kind of man who would risk his salvation in order to do some “last words” in an attractive way. He murmured and warbled, and warbled, and it was all just as simple and pretty as it could be. And also I will say this: that he never made an ungenerous remark about anybody. He spoke severely of this and that and the other person⁠—officers in the war⁠—but he spoke with dignity and with courtesy. There was no malignity in what he said. He merely pronounced what he evidently regarded as just criticisms upon them.

I noticed then, what I had noticed once before, four or five months ago, that the general valued his lost leg away above the one that is left. I am perfectly sure that if he had to part with either of them he would part with the one that he has got. I have noticed this same thing in several other generals who had lost a portion of themselves in the Civil War. There was General Fairchild of Wisconsin. He lost an arm in one of the great battles. When he was consul-general in Paris and we Clemenses were sojourning there some time or other, and grew to be well acquainted with him and with his family, I know that whenever a proper occasion⁠—an occasion which gave General Fairchild an opportunity to elevate the stump of the lost arm and wag it with effect, occurred⁠—that is what he did. It was easy to forgive him for it, and I did it.

General Noyes was our minister to France at the time. He had lost a leg in the war. He was a pretty vain man, I will say that for him, and anybody could see⁠—certainly I saw⁠—that whenever there was a proper gathering around, Noyes presently seemed to disappear. There wasn’t anything left of him but the leg which he didn’t have.

Well, General Sickles sat there on the sofa, and talked. It was a curious place. Two rooms of considerable size⁠—parlors opening together with folding-doors⁠—and the floors, the walls, the ceilings cluttered up and overlaid with lion skins, tiger skins, leopard skins, elephant skins; photographs of the general at various times of life⁠—photographs en civil; photographs in uniform; gushing sprays of swords fastened in trophy form against the wall; flags of various kinds stuck here and there and yonder; more animals; more skins; here and there and everywhere more and more skins; skins of wild creatures, always, I believe; beautiful skins. You couldn’t walk across that floor anywhere without stumbling over the hard heads of lions and things. You couldn’t put out a hand anywhere without laying it upon a velvety, exquisite tiger-skin or leopard skin, and so on⁠—oh, well, all the kinds of skins were there; it was as if a menagerie had undressed in the place. Then there was a most decided and rather unpleasant odor, which proceeded from disinfectants and preservatives and things such as you have to sprinkle on skins in order to discourage the moths⁠—so it was not altogether a pleasant place, on that account. It was a kind of museum, and yet it was not the sort of museum which seemed dignified enough to be the museum of a great soldier⁠—and so famous a soldier. It was