April 27 Saturday – [date in a PDF box]
Sam’s notebook: “Brooklyn Clerical Union Funk (J.K.) 30 Layfayette Place. / Dinner— 5.30 (& Livy) Montauk Club. / Take Flatbush ave trolley at end of bridge—get out at cor 8the ave & Flatbush— Montauk is only a few doors away” [NB 44 TS 9].
Sam spoke at the Mauntauk Club, Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Clerical Union. The New York Sun, p.1 covered the event:
TWAIN’S RETORT TO DR. SPAULDING.
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Glad, Anyhow, That the Clergyman Spared the Head of the Family
NEW YORK. April 28.—Mark Twain was a guest of the Brooklyn Clerical Union on Saturday night. It was “ladies’ night,” and President Rev. Dr. J. F. Carson welcomed the ladies with a eulogy of wives.
“All our best and noblest impulses and inspirations come from them,” said he.
When Mark Twain’s time came he said:
“At just this time I am remarkably comforted by an invitation to meet a body of clergymen like this. It’s only in Brooklyn that I am appreciated. But what’s the use of lugging that in about our wives? Don’t you think that’s a little extravagant? Mrs. Clemens was too tired to come, and I’m glad she was. I don’t want her to hear things like that. Why don’t you people, so far as your calling will allow, try to tell the truth? To be sure, you sometimes get out of practice, but one saying one thing and one another, you produce confusion in the minds of people about religious matters. The Rev. Dr. ___oh, I won’t mention his name, has just called me low born and ill bred. I don’t mind that so much. Shakespeare was low born, too; and there was Adam—I believe he was born out in the woods. But I’m glad the doctor didn’t say it about Adam. When such a thing is said about the head of the family it hurts. Anyhow, I think I would prefer to be low born—in a Republic— like the rest. If I had been born on the other side, why, then I would have liked to be born a Duke, as I suppose Rev. Dr. ___ I won’t mention his name—would have been, if he had been born there.”
It was Rev. Dr. Wayland Spaulding, president of the Congregational Clerical Union, who on Monday last, called Mark Twain low born and ill bred.