Peter Risdon writes to draw to my attention what Mark
Twain wrote to Walt Whitman on this 70th
birthday:
What great births you have witnessed! The
steam press, the steamship, the steel ship, the railroad, the
perfected cotton-gin, the telegraph, the phonograph, the
photograph, photo-gravure, the electrotype, the gaslight, the
electric light, the sewing machine, & the amazing, infinitely
varied & innumerable products of coal tar, those latest &
strangest marvels of a marvelous age. And you have seen even
greater births than these; for you have seen the application of
anesthesia to surgery-practice, whereby the ancient dominion of
pain, which began with the first created life, came to an end in
this earth forever; you have seen the slave set free, you have seen
the monarchy banished from France, & reduced in England to a
machine which makes an imposing show of diligence & attention
to business, but isn't connected with the works. Yes, you have
indeed seen much - but tarry yet a while, for the greatest is yet
to come. Wait thirty years, & thenlook out
over the earth! You shall see marvels upon marvels added to these
whose nativity you have witnessed; & conspicuous above them you
shall see their formidable Result - Man at almost his full stature
at last! - & still growing, visibly growing while you look.
After that the letter gets a bit mystical and religious for my
taste. But it's a fine specimen of nineteenth century rational
optimism at a time when `degeneration' was about to seize the
imagination of the intelligentsia.
