With considerable frequency, since then, I have tried to get publishers to make the experiment of such a magazine, but I was never successful. I was never able to convince a publisher that The Back Number would interest the public. Not one of them was able to conceive of the idea of a sane2 human being finding interest in stale things. I made my latest effort three years ago. Again I failed to convince. But I, myself, am not convinced. I am quite sure that The Back Number would succeed and become a favorite. I am also sure of another thing--that The Back Number would have this advantage over any other magazine that was ever issued, to wit: that the man who read the first paragraph in it would go on and read the magazine entirely3 through, skipping nothing--whereas there is no magazine in existence which ever contains three articles which can be depended upon to interest the reader. It is necessary to put a dozen articles into a magazine of the day in order to hit six or eight tastes. One man buys the magazine for one of its articles, another is attracted by another, another by a third; but no man buys the magazine because of the whole of its contents. I contend that The Back Number would be bought for the whole of its contents and that each reader would read the whole.
Mr. Paine, you and I will start that magazine, and try the experiment, if you are willing to select the ancient news from old books and newspapers and do the rest of the editorial work. Are you willing?
Mr. Paine. "I should be very willing, when we get time to undertake it."
"Very well, then we will, by and by, make that experiment."
Twichell and I stepped across the street, that night, in the rain, and spent an hour with General Sickles. Sickles is eighty-one years old, now. I had met him only once or twice before, although there has been only the width of Ninth Street between us for a year. He is too old to make visits, and I am too lazy. I remember when he killed Philip Barton Key, son of the author of "The Star-spangled Banner," and I remember the prodigious5 excitement it made in the country. I think it cannot be far from fifty years ago. My vague recollection of it is that it happened in Washington and that I was there at the time.
I have felt well acquainted with General Sickles for thirty-eight or thirty-nine years, because I have known Twichell that long. Twichell was a chaplain in Sickles's brigade in the Civil War, and he was always fond of talking about the general. Twichell was under Sickles all through the war. Whenever he comes down from Hartford he makes it his duty to go and pay his respects to the general. Sickles is a genial6 old fellow; a handsome and stately military figure; talks smoothly7, in well-constructed English--I may say perfectly8 constructed English. His talk is full of interest and bristling9 with points, but as there are no emphases scattered10 through it anywhere, and as there is no animation11 in it, it soon becomes oppressive by its monotony and it makes the listener drowsy12. Twichell had to step on my foot once or twice. The late Bill Nye once said, "I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds." That felicitous13 description of a something which so many people have tried to describe, and couldn't, does seem to fit the general's manner of speech exactly. His talk is much better than it is. No, that is not the idea--there seems to be a lack there somewhere. Maybe it is another case of the sort just quoted. Maybe Nye would say that "it is better than it sounds." I think that is it. His talk does not sound entertaining, but it is distinctly entertaining.
Sickles lost a leg at Gettysburg, and I remember Twichell's account of that circumstance. He talked about it on one of our long walks, a great many years ago, and, although the details have passed out of my memory, I still carry the picture in my mind as presented by Twichell. The leg was taken off by a cannon14 ball. Twichell and others carried the general out of the battle, and they placed him on a bed made of boughs15, under a tree. There was no surgeon present, and Twichell and Rev16. Father O'Hagan, a Catholic priest, made a makeshift tourniquet17 and stopped the gush18 of blood--checked it, perhaps is the right term. A newspaper correspondent appeared first. Gen. Sickles considered himself a dying man, and (if Twichell is as truthful19 a person as the character of his cloth requires him to be) General Sickles put aside everything connected with a future world in order to go out of this one in becoming style. And so he dictated20 his "last words" to that newspaper correspondent. That was Twichell's idea--I remember it well--that the general, no doubt influenced by the fact that several people's last words have been so badly chosen--whether by accident or intention--that they have outlived all the rest of the man's fame, was moved to do his last words in a form calculated to petrify21 and preserve them for the future generations. Twichell quoted that speech. I have forgotten what it was, now, but it was well chosen for its purpose.
Now when we sat there in the general's presence, listening to his monotonous22 talk--it was about himself, and is always about himself, and always seems modest and unexasperating, inoffensive--it seemed to me that he was just the kind of man who would risk his salvation23 in order to do some "last words" in an attractive way. He murmured and warbled, and warbled, and it was all just as simple and pretty as it could be. And also I will say this: that he never made an ungenerous remark about anybody. He spoke24 severely25 of this and that and the other person--officers in the war--but he spoke with dignity and with courtesy. There was no malignity26 in what he said. He merely pronounced what he evidently regarded as just criticisms upon them.
I noticed then, what I had noticed once before, four or five months ago, that the general valued his lost leg away above the one that is left. I am perfectly sure that if he had to part with either of them he would part with the one that he has got. I have noticed this same thing in several other generals who had lost a portion of themselves in the Civil War. There was General Fairchild of Wisconsin. He lost an arm in one of the great battles. When he was consul-general in Paris and we Clemenses were sojourning there some time or other, and grew to be well acquainted with him and with his family, I know that whenever a proper occasion--an occasion which gave General Fairchild an opportunity to elevate the stump27 of the lost arm and wag it with effect, occurred--that is what he did. It was easy to forgive him for it, and I did it.
General Noyes was our minister to France at the time. He had lost a leg in the war. He was a pretty vain man, I will say that for him, and anybody could see--certainly I saw--that whenever there was a proper gathering28 around, Noyes presently seemed to disappear. There wasn't anything left of him but the leg which he didn't have.
Well, General Sickles sat there on the sofa, and talked. It was a curious place. Two rooms of considerable size--parlors opening together with folding-doors--and the floors, the walls, the ceilings cluttered29 up and overlaid with lion skins, tiger skins, leopard30 skins, elephant skins; photographs of the general at various times of life--photographs en civil; photographs in uniform; gushing31 sprays of swords fastened in trophy32 form against the wall; flags of various kinds stuck here and there and yonder; more animals; more skins; here and there and everywhere more and more skins; skins of wild creatures, always, I believe; beautiful skins. You couldn't walk across that floor anywhere without stumbling over the hard heads of lions and things. You couldn't put out a hand anywhere without laying it upon a velvety33, exquisite34 tiger-skin or leopard skin, and so on--oh, well, all the kinds of skins were there; it was as if a menagerie had undressed in the place. Then there was a most decided35 and rather unpleasant odor, which proceeded from disinfectants and preservatives36 and things such as you have to sprinkle on skins in order to discourage the moths--so it was not altogether a pleasant place, on that account. It was a kind of museum, and yet it was not the sort of museum which seemed dignified37 enough to be the museum of a great soldier--and so famous a soldier. It was the sort of museum which should delight and entertain little boys and girls. I suppose that that museum reveals a part of the general's character and make. He is sweetly and winningly childlike.
Once, in Hartford, twenty or twenty-five years ago, just as Twichell was coming out of his gate one Sunday morning to walk to his church and preach, a telegram was put into his hand. He read it immediately, and then, in a manner, collapsed38. It said, "General Sickles died last night at midnight."
Well, you can see, now, that it wasn't so. But no matter--it was so to Joe at the time. He walked along--walked to the church--but his mind was far away. All his affection and homage39 and worship of his general had come to the fore4. His heart was full of these emotions. He hardly knew where he was. In his pulpit, he stood up and began the service, but with a voice over which he had almost no command. The congregation had never seen him thus moved, before, in his pulpit. They sat there and gazed at him and wondered what was the matter; because he was now reading, in this broken voice and with occasional tears trickling40 down his face, what to them, seemed a quite unemotional chapter--that one about Moses begat Aaron, and Aaron begat Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy begat St. Peter, and St. Peter begat Cain, and Cain begat Abel--and he was going along with this, and half crying--his voice continually breaking. The congregation left that church that morning without being able to account for this most extraordinary thing--as it seemed to them. That a man who had been a soldier for more than four years, and who had preached in that pulpit so many, many times on really moving subjects, without even the quiver of a lip, should break all down over the begattings, was a thing which they couldn't understand. But there it is--any one can see how such a mystery as that would arouse the curiosity of those people to the boiling-point.
Twichell has had many adventures. He has more adventures in a year than anybody else has in five. One Saturday night he noticed a bottle on his wife's dressing41 bureau. He thought the label said "Hair Restorer," and he took it in his room and gave his head a good drenching42 and sousing with it and carried it back and thought no more about it. Next morning when he got up his head was a bright green! He sent around everywhere and couldn't get a substitute preacher, so he had to go to his church himself and preach--and he did it. He hadn't a sermon in his barrel--as it happened--of any lightsome character, so he had to preach a very grave one--a very serious one--and it made the matter worse. The gravity of the sermon did not harmonize with the gayety of his head, and the people sat all through it with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths--any way to try to keep down their joy. And Twichell told me that he was sure he never had seen his congregation--he had never seen the whole body of his congregation--the entire body of his congregation--absorbed in interest in his sermon, from beginning to end, before. Always there had been an aspect of indifference43, here and there, or wandering, somewhere; but this time there was nothing of the kind. Those people sat there as if they thought, "Good for this day and train only; we must have all there is of this show, not waste any of it." And he said that when he came down out of the pulpit more people waited to shake him by the hand and tell him what a good sermon it was, than ever before. And it seemed a pity that these people should do these fictions in such a place--right in the church--when it was quite plain they were not interested in the sermon at all; they only wanted to get a near view of his head.
Well, Twichell said--no, Twichell didn't say, I say, that as the days went on and Sunday followed Sunday, the interest in Twichell's hair grew and grew; because it didn't stay green. It took on deeper and deeper shades of green; and then it would change and become reddish, and would go from that to some other color; but it was never a solid color. It was always mottled. And each Sunday it was a little more interesting than it was the Sunday before--and Twichell's head became famous while his hair was undergoing these various and fascinating mottlings. And it was a good thing in several ways, because the business had been languishing44 a little, and now a lot of people joined the church so that they could have the show, and it was the beginning of a prosperity for that church which has never diminished in all these years. Nothing so fortunate ever happened to Joe as that.
But I have wandered from that tree where General Sickles lay bleeding and arranging his last words. It was three-quarters of an hour before a surgeon could be found, for that was a tremendous battle and surgeons were needed everywhere. When the surgeon arrived it was after nightfall. It was a still and windless July night, and there was a candle burning--I think somebody sat near the general's head and held this candle in his hand. It threw just light enough to make the general's face distinct, and there were several dim figures waiting around about. Into this group, out of the darkness, bursts an aide; springs lightly from his horse; approaches this white-faced expiring general; straightens himself up soldier fashion; salutes45; and reports in the most soldierly and matter-of-fact way that he has carried out an order given him by the general, and that the movement of the regiments46 to the supporting point designated has been accomplished47.
The general thanked him courteously48. I am sure Sickles must have been always polite. It takes training to enable a person to be properly courteous49 when he is dying. Many have tried it. I suppose very few have succeeded.
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1
sickles
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| n.镰刀( sickle的名词复数 ) | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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6
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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felicitous
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| adj.恰当的，巧妙的；n.恰当，贴切 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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tourniquet
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| n.止血器，绞压器，驱血带 | |
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gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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petrify
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| vt.使发呆；使…变成化石 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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cluttered
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| v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满… | |
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leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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trophy
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| n.优胜旗，奖品，奖杯，战胜品，纪念品 | |
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velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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preservatives
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| n.防腐剂( preservative的名词复数 ) | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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40
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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41
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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42
drenching
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| n.湿透v.使湿透( drench的现在分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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43
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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languishing
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| a. 衰弱下去的 | |
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45
salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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46
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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47
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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48
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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49
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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