[The Rev. Dr. Newman]
1885.Ⓐapparatus note
Extract from my note bookⒺexplanatory note:
April 4, 1885.Ⓐapparatus note GeneralⒶapparatus note Grant is still living,Ⓐapparatus note this morning. Many a person between the two oceans lay hours awake, last night,Ⓐapparatus note listening for the booming of the fire-bells thatⒶapparatus note should speak to theⒶapparatus note nation inⒶapparatus note simultaneous voice and tell it its calamity. The bell-strokesⒶapparatus note are to be thirty seconds apart and there will be sixty-three—the General’s age. They will be striking in every town in the United States at the same moment—the first time in the world’s history that the bells of a nation have tolled in unison,Ⓐapparatus note beginning at the same moment and ending at the same moment.Ⓐapparatus note
More than onceⒶapparatus note during two weeks, the nation stood watching with bated breath expecting the news of GeneralⒶapparatus note Grant’s death.
The family in their distressⒶapparatus note desired spiritual helpⒶapparatus note and one Rev. Dr. NewmanⒺexplanatory note was sent for to furnish it. Newman had lately gone to California where he had got a ten-thousand-dollarⒶapparatus note job to preach a funeral sermon over the son of ex-Governor StanfordⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note, the millionaire,Ⓐapparatus note and a most remarkable sermon it was—and worth the money. If Newman got the facts right, neither he nor anybody else—any ordinary human being—Ⓐapparatus notewas worthy to preach that youth’s funeral sermonⒶapparatus note and it was manifest that one of the disciples ought to have been imported into California for the occasion. Newman came on from California at once, and began his ministration at the General’s bedside;Ⓐapparatus note andⒶapparatus note if one might trust his daily reportsⒶapparatus note the General had conceived a new and perfect interest in spiritual things. It is fair to presume that the most of Newman’s daily reports originated in his own imagination.
Colonel Fred Grant told me that his father was,Ⓐapparatus note in this matter,Ⓐapparatus note what he was in all mattersⒶapparatus note and at all times—that is to say, perfectly willing to have family prayers going on, or anything else that could be satisfactory to anybody, or increaseⒶapparatus note anybody’s comfort in any way;Ⓐapparatus note but he also said that while his father was a good man, and indeed as good as any man, Christian or otherwise, he was notⒶapparatus note a praying man.
Some of the speeches put into General Grant’s mouth were to the last degree incredible to people who knew the General,Ⓐapparatus note since they were such gaudy and flowery misrepresentations of that plain-spoken man’s utterances.
About the 14th or 15th of April,Ⓐapparatus note Rev.Ⓐapparatus note Mr.Ⓐapparatus note Newman reported thatⒶapparatus note upon visiting the GeneralⒶapparatus note in his sick chamber,Ⓐapparatus note the General pressed his hand and delivered himself of this astounding remark:
“Thrice have I been in the shadow of the valley of death and thrice have I come out again.”Ⓔexplanatory note
General Grant never used flowers of speech, and dead or aliveⒶapparatus note he never could have utteredⒶapparatus note anything like that, either as a quotation or otherwise.
About that time I came across a gentleman in the railway train who had been connected with our embassy in China during the past sixteen yearsⒶapparatus note and was now at home on leave of absence,Ⓐapparatus note and he told me something about Newman. He said that once, when General Grant [begin page 100] was President,Ⓐapparatus note Newman wanted to travel about the world a little and he was given the post of Inspector of Consulates. It was a salaried position and the salary was paid out of an appropriation set apart for that purpose. Whenever an inspector’s time expired,Ⓐapparatus note whatever might be left unexpended of that appropriationⒶapparatus note had to be turned in to the Treasury.
This Secretary of Legation tried to make me understandⒶapparatus note how there was some crookedness about Newman’s expenditures,Ⓐapparatus note but I am not able to callⒶapparatus note to mind in what the crookedness consisted,Ⓐapparatus note so I will not make the attempt. The Secretary was mainly interested in showingⒶapparatus note not that Newman was a knave but that he was simplyⒶapparatus note an ass. He said he came out to China and proceeded to investigate the legation, and hauled it vigorously over the coals, and was getting along very satisfactorily with his workⒶapparatus note when the American Minister spoiled it all by calling his attention to the fact that the legation was not a consulate and did not come within the jurisdiction of his powers.
There was a social club there, composed of American ladies and gentlemen, who met occasionally to discuss things, and Newman showed a good deal of anxiety to get an invitation to address it and to furnish an essay for one of their discussions. His hints were not favorably received. So he compacted them into a clear form: in fact he invited himself. In introducing him the chairman almost apologized to the company and said in substanceⒶapparatus note that Rev.Ⓐapparatus note Mr.Ⓐapparatus note Newman had asked permission to address the club.
This chilly introduction didn’t distress the essayist a bit apparently. He opened his remarks with a graceful reference to the urgency which had been brought to bear upon him to address the club and which he could not politely decline.
The Secretary of Legation may have exaggerated the case, butⒶapparatus note from what I can gatherⒶapparatus note Dr. Newman is really about that kind of a man.
Extract from my note book] This extract is a near verbatim rendering of Clemens’s notebook entry (see N&J3, 117–18).
Rev. Dr. Newman] John Philip Newman (1826–99) was ordained as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church in 1849. After serving as chaplain of the U.S. Senate from 1869 to 1874—during which time he became a confidant of Julia Grant’s—he was appointed inspector of U.S. consuls in Asia by President Grant (Goldhurst 1975, 187–88).
ex-Governor Stanford] Leland Stanford (1824–93) was trained in the law. He went West in 1852 to join his brothers in various mercantile pursuits, and served as governor of California from 1861 to 1863. He became immensely wealthy from his partnership in the Central Pacific Railroad corporation, which completed the transcontinental railroad in 1869. His only son, Leland, Jr., died at age fifteen in March 1884 while visiting Italy. His body was brought home and held in a vault while his family built a mausoleum on their property in Palo Alto, said to be “as magnificent as an Oriental palace.” At the memorial service held in Grace Church in San Francisco on 30 December, $20,000 was spent on floral decorations. Newman delivered a eulogy, the “most fulsome ever delivered in the Western Hemisphere,” comparing “young Stanford to all the great of earth, and then, as if weary of the effort to find a fitting prototype for him among human beings, he boldly declared that the boy was some sort of a reproduction of Jesus Christ” (“California Astonished,” Chicago Tribune, 2 Jan 1885, 3).
“Thrice have I been . . . come out again.”] A similar version of Newman’s remark was reported in the New York Times on 16 April 1885, and doubtless in other newspapers as well (“A Day of Hopefulness,” 4).
[The Rev. Dr. Newman] ❉ Textual Commentary
Redpath corrected the TS in purple pencil; Clemens then made corrections and revisions in ink. When Paine published the text in MTA, he substituted ‘N——’ for ‘Newman’ throughout. The first paragraph is an extract from Clemens’s 1885 notebook, which is therefore used as the source for the readings adopted that passage (99.3–9; Notebook 23, TS pp. 39–40, in N&J3, 117).