Number 8 of 52 Compelling Communicators: Mark Twain
February 25, 2013
No list
of compelling communicators would be complete without Mark Twain. Often quoted
and vastly admired there is much to learn from this man. I have a
book of his speeches that I reread regularly for inspiration and ideas. Here
are excerpts from a speech he delivered in 1879 at a dinner in honour of Oliver
Wendell Holmes on his seventieth birthday:
Unconscious Plagiarism
"I would
have travelled a much greater distance than I have come to witness the paying
of honors to Doctor Holmes; for my feeling toward him has always been one of
peculiar warmth."
(This
intro makes everyone in the room feel good about the occasion and the man they came to honour. Twain created an instant connection)
"When one
receives a letter from a great man for the first time in his life, it is a
large event to him, as all of you know by your own experience. You never can
receive letters enough from famous men afterward to obliterate that one, or dim
the memory of the pleasant surprise it was, and the gratification it gave you.
Lapse of time cannot make it commonplace or cheap."
(Beautifully
worded way to say how much a letter can mean to someone. He draws in the audience to think what such a letter might mean to them. I wonder if we will ever say the same thing
about emails)
"Well, the
first great man who ever wrote me a letter was our guest – Oliver Wendell
Holmes. He was also the first great literary man I ever stole anything from –
and that is how I came to write to him and he to me."
(Lovely way to
shock your audience to keep them intrigued)
"When my
first book was new, a friend of mine said to me, “The dedication is very near.”
Yes, I said, I thought it was. My friend said, “I always admired it, even
before I saw it in The Innocents Abroad.” I naturally said: “What do you mean?
Where did you see it before?” “Well, I saw it first some years ago as Doctor
Holmes’s dedication to his Songs in Many Keys. Of course, my first impulse was
to prepared this man’s remains for burial, but upon reflection I said I would
reprieve him for a moment or two and give him a chance to proved his assertion
if he could: We stepped into a book-store and he did prove it. I had really
stolen that dedication, almost word for word."
(Infinitely more interesting way to share his accidental plagiarism rather than just admit to the error)
"I could
not imagine how this curious thing had happened; for I knew one thing that a
certain amount of pride always goes along with a teaspoonful of brains, and
that this pride protects a man from deliberately stealing other people’s ideas.
This is what a teaspoonful of brains will do for a man – and admirers had often
told me I had nearly a basketful-thought they we rather reserved as to the size
of the basket."
(His
descriptions paint glorious pictures and keep the audience fully engaged)
"However,
I thought the thing out, and solved the mystery."
(Aha, you
knew there was going to be a good explanation)
"Two years
before, I had been laid up a couple of weeks in the Sandwich Island, and had
read and re-read Doctor Holmes poems till my mental reservoir was filled up
with them to the brim. The dedication
lay on the top, and hand, so, by and by, I unconsciously stole it. Perhaps I
unconsciously stole the rest of the volume, too, for many people have told me
that my book was pretty poetical, in one way or another. Well, of course, wrote
Doctor Holmes and told him I hadn’t meant to steal, and he wrote back and said
in the kindest way that it was all right and no harm done; and added that he
believed we all unconsciously worked over ideas gathered in reading and
hearing, imagining they we original with ourselves."
(Incredible
way to illustrate how gracious Dr. Holmes could be – the classic “show, don’t tell”
of great writing)
"He stated
a truth, and did it in such a pleasant way, and salved over my sore spot so
gently and so healingly, that I was rather glad I had committed the crime, far
the sake of the letter."
(Everyone
in the room can now have a chuckle over Twain’s happiness with his faux pas)
"I
afterward called on him and told him to make perfectly free with any ideas of
mine that struck him as being good protoplasm for poetry. He could see by that
that there wasn’t anything mean about me; so we got along right from the start.
I have not met Doctor Holmes many times since; and lately he said – However, I
am wandering wildly away from the one thing which I got on my feet to do; that
is, to make my compliments to you, my fellow-teachers of the great public,…."
(He was
at a dinner given by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly – way to draw your
audience back into the picture and tease them slightly about what Doctor Holmes
said recently...and not tell them)
"….and
like-wise to say that I am right glad to see that Doctor Holmes is still in his
prime and full of generous life; and as age is not determined by years, but by
trouble and infirmities of mind and body, I hope it may be a very long time yet
before any one can truthfully say, “He is growing old.”"
(Marvellous
way to make someone relish and celebrate their age – classy ending Mr. Twain, you
are the best)
I wonder
how long he worked on this speech – reading time 3 minutes. Remember Mr. Twain
was the one who said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter so I wrote a
long one instead.”If you
are now inspired to read more from this most compelling man check out the ebook
under Project Gutenberg’s Mark Twain Speeches.
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