Artemus Ward

“ I said, "then this little boy, whose eye is like a eagle a-soaring proudly in the azure sky, will some day be a man, if he don't choke hisself to death in childhood's sunny hours with a smelt or a bloater, or some other drefful calamity. How surblime the tho't, my dear Madam, that this infant as you fondle on your knee on this night, may grow up into a free and independent citizen, whose vote will be worth from ten to fifteen pounds, accordin as suffrage may range at that joyous perid!" ”

“ How often do large fortunes ruin young men! I should like to be ruined, but I can get on very well as I am.
I am not an Artist. I don't paint myself—though perhaps if I were a middle-aged single lady I should—yet I have a passion for pictures—I have had a great many pictures—photographs taken of myself. ”

“ Brigham Young is a prophet—the legitimate successor of Joseph Smith—who founded the Mormon religion. They also say they are authorized—by special revelation from Heaven—to marry as many wives as they can comfortably support.
This wife-system they call plurality—the world calls it polygamy. That at its best it is an accursed thing—I need not of course inform you—but you will bear in mind that I am here as a rather cheerful reporter of what I saw in Utah—and I fancy it isn't at all necessary for me to grow virtuously indignant over something we all know is hideously wrong. ”

“ When these good idiots heard Artemus offer if they did not like the lecture in Piccadilly, to give them free tickets for the same lecture in California, when he next visited that country, they turned to each other indignantly, and said, "What use are tickets for California to us? WE are not going to California. No! we are too good, too respectable to go so far from home. The man is a fool!" ”

“ Go home, you miserable men, go home & till the sile! Go to peddlin tinware—go to choppin wood—go to bilin' sope—stuff sassengers—black boots—git a clerkship on sum respectable manure cart—go round as original Swiss Bell Ringers—becum 'origenal and only' Campbell Minstrels—go to lecturin at 50 dollars a nite—imbark in the peanut bizniss—write for the Ledger—saw off your legs and go round givin concerts, with tuchin appeals to a charitable public, printed on your handbills—anything for a honest living, but don't come round here drivin Old Abe crazy by your outrajis cuttings up! ”

“ This silver is melted into solid bricks—about the size of ordinary house-bricks—and carted off to San Francisco with mules. The roads often swarm with these silver wagons.
One hundred and seventy-five miles to the east of this place are the Reese River Silver Mines—which are supposed to be the richest in the world.
The great American Desert in winter time—the desert which is so frightfully gloomy always. No trees—no houses—no people—save the miserable beings who live in wretched huts and have charge of the horses and mules of the Overland Mail Company. ”

“ The Mormon woman is early taught that man, being created in the image of the Saviour, is far more godly than she can ever be, and that for her to seek to monopolize his affections is a species of rank sin. So she shares his affections with five or six or twenty other women, as the case may be.
A man must be amply able to support a number of wives before he can take them. Hence, perhaps, it is that so many old chaps in Utah have young and blooming wives in their seraglios, and so many young men have only one. ”

“ It is an odd sight to see a jovial old Mormon file down the parquette aisle with ten or twenty robust wives at his heels. Yet this spectacle may be witnessed every night the theatre is opened. The dress circle is chiefly occupied by the officers from Camp Douglas and the Gentile Merchants. The upper circles are filled by the private soldiers and Mormon boys. I feel bound to say that a Mormon audience is quite as appreciative as any other kind of an audience. They prefer comedy to tragedy. Sentimental plays, for obvious reasons, are unpopular with them. ”

“ It is night. A tempest is raging tempestuously without, but within we find a scene of dazzling magnificence. The cave is spacious. Chandeliers of solid gold hang up suspended around the gorgeously furnished room, and the marble floor is star-studded with flashing diamonds. It must have cost between two hundred dollars to fit this cave up. It embraced all of the modern improvements. At the head of the cave life-size photographs (by Ryder) of the bandits, and framed in gilt, were hung up suspended. ”

“ I should be very happy to have her pay me and my family a visit at Baldinsville. Come and bring your knittin', Miss MONK. Mrs. WARD will do the fair thing by you. She makes the best slap-jacks in America. As a slap-jackist, she has no ekal. She wears the Belt.
What the review was all about, I don't know. I haven't a gigantic intelleck, which can grasp great questions at onct. I am not a WEBSTER or a SEYMOUR. I am not a WASHINGTON or a OLD ABE. Fur from it. I am not as gifted a man as HENRY WARD BEECHER. Even the congregation of Plymouth Meetin'-House in Brooklyn will admit that. ”

“ Gentleman of the Senit & of the House, you've sot there and draw'd your pay and made summer-complaint speeches long enuff. The country at large, incloodin' the undersined, is disgusted with you. Why don't you show us a statesman—sumbody who can make a speech that will hit the pop'lar hart right under the great Public weskit? Why don't you show us a statesman who can rise up to the Emergency, and cave in the Emergency's head? ”

“ She whom I adore, whom I adore still, is the wife of a fat Marquis—a lop-eared, blear-eyed,greasy Marquis. A man without soul. A man without sentiment, who cares naught for moonlight and music. A low, practical man, who pays his debts. ”

“ Gentiles, of course, say that he abuses this blind confidence of his people, and speculates with their money, and absorbs the interest if he doesn't the principle. The Mormons deny this, and say that whatever of their money he does use is for the good of the Church; that he defrays the expenses of emigrants from far over the seas; that he is foremost in all local enterprises tending to develop the resources of the territory, an that, in short, he is incapable of wrong in any shape. ”

“ The wit of Charles Browne is of the most exalted kind. It is only scholars and those thoroughly acquainted with the subtilty of our language who fully appreciate it. His wit is generally about historical personages like Cromwell, Garrick, or Shakspeare, or a burlesque on different styles of writing, like his French novel, when hifalutin phrases of tragedy come from the clodhopper who—"sells soap and thrice—refuses a ducal coronet." ”

“ The Showman blushes for you, from his boots to the topmost hair upon his wenerable hed.
Feller Sitterzens: I am in the Sheer & Yeller leaf. I shall peg out 1 of these dase. But while I do stop here I shall stay in the Union. I know not what the supervizers of Baldinsville may conclude to do, but for one, I shall stand by the Stars & Stripes. Under no circumstances whatsomever will I sesesh. Let every Stait in the Union sesesh & let Palmetter flags flote thicker nor shirts on Square Baxter's close line, still will I stick to the good old flag. The country may go to the devil, but I won't! ”

“ These fires occur—of course—in the summer—when the grass is dry as tinder—and the flames rush and roar over the prairie in a manner frightful to behold. They usually burn better than mine is burning to-night. ”

“ Thus, while your enrapterd soul drinks in the lorfty and noble sentences of the gifted artists, you can eat a biled mack'ril jest as comfor'bly as in your own house. I felt constrained, however, to tell a fond mother who sot immegitly behind me, and who was accompanied by a gin bottle, and a young infant—I felt constrained to tell that mother, when her infant playfully mingled a rayther oily mack'ril with the little hair which is left on my vener'ble hed, that I had a bottle of scented hair oil at home, which on the whole I tho't I preferred to that which her orfspring was greasin me with. ”

“ At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surry Theatre, where "Troo to the Core" is bein acted, and in which a full bally core is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, givin the audiens the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he conkers that town. ”

“ Highly respectable people—the pride of their parish—when they heard of a lecture "upon the Mormons," expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and new statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy,—and rave without limit against Mormons. ”

“ Feller citizens, it will be a proud day for this Republic when Washington is safe. My wife says so too.
The editor of the Bugle-Horn of Liberty here arose and said: "I do not wish to interrupt the gentleman, but a impertant despatch has just bin received at the telegraph office here. I will read it. It is as follows: Gov'ment is about to take vigorous measures to put down the rebellion! [Loud applause.]
That, said I, is cheering. That's soothing. And Washington will be safe. [Sensation.] Philadelphia is safe. Gen. PATTERSON'S in Philadelphia. But my heart bleeds partic'ly for Washington. ”

“ Now and then you see a fine modern house in Salt Lake City—but no house that is dirty, shabby, and dilapidated—because there are no absolutely poor people in Utah. Every Mormon has a nice garden—and every Mormon has a tidy dooryard.—Neatness is a great characteristic of the Mormons. ”

“ I've bin honored with a invite to norate before you to-day; and when I say that I skurcely feel ekal to the task, I'm sure you will believe me.
Weathersfield is justly celebrated for her onyins and patritism the world over, and to be axed to paws and address you on this my fust perfeshernal tower threw New Englan, causes me to feel—to feel—I may say it causes me to FEEL. (Grate applaws. They thought this was one of my eccentricities, while the fact is I was stuck. This between you and I.)
I'm a plane man. I don't know nothin about no ded languages and am a little shaky on livin ones. ”

“ There are mud huts all along the route, and half-naked savages gaze patronizingly upon us from their doorways. An elderly lady in spectacles appears to be much scandalized by the scant dress of these people, and wants to know why the Select Men don't put a stop to it. ”

“ Brigham Young is 62 years old, of medium height, and with sandy hair and whiskers. An active, iron man, with a clear sharp eye. A man of consummate shrewdness—of great executive ability. He was born in the State of Vermont, and so by the way was Heber C. Kimball, who will wear the Mormon Belt when Brigham leaves the ring.
Brigham Young is a man of great natural ability. If you ask me, How pious is he? I treat it as a conundrum, and give it up. Personally he treated me with marked kindness throughout my sojourn in Utah. ”

“ But what was my horror when the grizzly and infamus Bear threw his other paw under me, and riz with me to his feet. Then claspin me in a close embrace he waltzed up and down the platform in a frightful manner, I yellin with fear and anguish. To make matters wuss, a low scurrilus young man in the audiens hollered out:
"Playfulness of the Bear! Quick moosic!"
I jest 'scaped with my life. The Bear met with a wiolent death the next day, by bein in the way when a hevily loaded gun was fired off by one of my men.
But you should hear my Essy which I wrote for the Social Science Meetins. ”

“ I see mutch to admire in New Englan. Your gals in partickular air abowt as snug bilt peaces of Calliker as I ever saw. They air fully equal to the corn fed gals of Ohio and Injianny and will make the bestest kind of wives. It sets my Buzzum on fire to look at 'em.
Be still, my sole, be still,
& you, Hart, stop cuttin up!
I like your skool houses, your meetin houses, your enterprise, gumpshun &c., but your favorit Bevridge I disgust. I allude to New England Rum. It is wuss nor the korn whisky of Injianny, which eats threw stone jugs & will turn the stummuck of the most shiftliss Hog. ”

“ England was thoroughly aroused to the merits of Artemus Ward, before he commenced his lectures at Egyptian Hall, and when, in November, he finally appeared, immense crowds were compelled to turn away. At every lecture his fame increased, and when sickness brought his brilliant success to an end, a nation mourned his retirement. ”

“ The stoodent and connyseer must have noticed and admired in varis parts of the United States of America large yeller hanbills, which not only air gems of art in theirselves, but they troothfully sit forth the attractions of my show—a show, let me here obsarve, that contains many livin' wild animils, every one of which has got a Beautiful Moral. ”

“ I feel in my pockets to see if the key which unlocks the carpet-bag containing my revolvers is all right—for I had rather brilliantly locked my deadly weapons up in that article, which was strapped with the other baggage to the rack behind. The passengers frown on me for this carelessness, but the kind-hearted Ryder gives me a small double-barrelled gun, with which I narrowly escape murdering my beloved friend Hingston in cold blood. I am not used to guns and things, and in changing the position of this weapon I pulled the trigger rather harder than was necessary. ”

“ It was bootiful to me, who love my wife, and believe in her, and would put on my meetin clothes and go to the gallus for her cheerfully, ruther than believe she was capable of taking anybody's money but mine. My marrid friends, listen to me: If you treat your wives as though' they were perfeck gentlemen—if you show 'em that you have entire confidence in them—believe me, they will be troo to you most always. ”

“ A noble youth of 27 summers enters. He is attired in a red shirt and black trowsis, which last air turned up over his boots; his hat, which it is a plug, being cockt onto one side of his classical hed. In sooth, he was a heroic lookin person, with a fine shape. Grease, in its barmiest days, near projuced a more hefty cavileer. Gazin upon him admiringly for a spell, Elizy (for that was her name) organized herself into a tabloo, and stated as follers.
"Ha! do me eyes deceive me earsight? Is it some dreams? No, I reckon not! That frame! them store close! those nose! ”

“ Uncle Wilyim said it was one of the most sing'ler things he ever heard of; and, after collectin the insurance money, he bust into a flood of tears, and retired to his farm in Pennsylvany. He was my uncle by marriage only. I do not say that he wasn't a honest man. I simply say that if you have a uncle, and bitter experunce tells you it is more profitable in a pecoonery pint of view to put pewter spoons instid of silver ones onto the table when that uncle dines with you in a frenly way—I simply say, there is sumthun wrong in our social sistim, which calls loudly for reform. ”

“ We all know and admit it to be a hideous wrong—a great immoral strain upon the 'scutcheon of the United States. My belief is that its existence is dependent upon the life of Brigham Young. His administrative ability holds the system together—his power of will maintains it as the faith of a community. When he dies—Mormonism will die too. ”