Presently the idea developed to establish something that would be of benefit to his neighbors, especially to those who did not have access to much reading-matter.  He had been for years flooded with books by authors and publishers, and there was a heavy surplus at his home in the city.  When these began to arrive he had a large number of volumes set aside as the nucleus of a public library.  An unused chapel not far away—­it could be seen from one of his windows—­was obtained for the purpose; officers were elected; a librarian was appointed, and so the Mark Twain Library of Redding was duly established.  Clemens himself was elected its first president, with the resident physician, Dr. Ernest H. Smith, vice-president, and another resident, William E. Grumman, librarian.  On the afternoon of its opening the president made a brief address.  He said: 

I am here to speak a few instructive words to my fellow-farmers.  I suppose you are all farmers:  I am going to put in a crop next year, when I have been here long enough and know how.  I couldn’t make a turnip stay on a tree now after I had grown it.  I like to talk.  It would take more than the Redding air to make me keep still, and I like to instruct people.  It’s noble to be good, and it’s nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble.  I am glad to help this library.  We get our morals from books.  I didn’t get mine from books, but I know that morals do come from books —­theoretically at least.  Mr. Beard or Mr. Adams will give some land, and by and by we are going to have a building of our own.

This statement was news to both Mr. Beard and Mr. Adams and an inspiration of the moment; but Mr. Theodore Adams, who owned a most desirable site, did in fact promptly resolve to donate it for library purposes.  Clemens continued: 

    I am going to help build that library with contributions from my
    visitors.  Every male guest who comes to my house will have to
    contribute a dollar or go away without his baggage.

—­[A characteristic notice to guests requiring them to contribute a dollar to the Library Building Fund was later placed on the billiard-room mantel at Stormfield with good results.]—­If those burglars that broke into my house recently had done that they would have been happier now, or if they’d have broken into this library they would have read a few books and led a better life.  Now they are in jail, and if they keep on they will go to Congress.  When a person starts downhill you can never tell where he’s going to stop.  I am sorry for those burglars.  They got nothing that they wanted and scared away most of my servants.  Now we are putting in a burglar-alarm instead of a dog.  Some advised the dog, but it costs even more to entertain a dog than a burglar.  I am having the ground electrified, so that for a mile around any one who puts his foot across the line sets off an alarm that will be heard in Europe.  Now I will introduce the real president to you, a man whom you know already—­Dr. Smith.

So a new and important benefit was conferred upon the community, and there was a feeling that Redding, besides having a literary colony, was to be literary in fact.