Then when I found they were
letting a whole crowd of millionaires live in New York at a third of
the price they were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and
said, this is the last feather. I am not going to run this town all
by myself. In that moment--in that memorable moment, I began to
crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In
fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sand-pile, and I
lifted up my hand, along with those seasoned and experienced
deacons, and swore off every rag of personal property I've got in
the world.
I had never heard him address a miscellaneous audience. It was marvelous
to see how he convulsed it, and silenced it, and controlled it at will.
He did not undertake any special pleading for the negro cause; he only
prepared the way with cheerfulness.
Clemens and Choate joined forces again, a few weeks later, at a great
public meeting assembled in aid of the adult blind. Helen Keller was to
be present, but she had fallen ill through overwork. She sent to Clemens
one of her beautiful letters, in which she said:
I should be happy if I could have spelled into my hand the words as
they fall from your lips, and receive, even as it is uttered, the
eloquence of our newest ambassador to the blind.
Clemens, dictating the following morning, told of his first meeting with
Helen Keller at a little gathering in Lawrence Hutton's home, when she
was about the age of fourteen.
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