I am most emphatically in sympathy with the movement, now on foot in Russia, to make that country free.  I am certain that it will be successful, as it deserves to be.  Any such movement should have and deserves our earnest and unanimous co-operation, and such a petition for funds as has been explained by Mr. Hunter, with its just and powerful meaning, should have the utmost support of each and every one of us.  Anybody whose ancestors were in this country when we were trying to free ourselves from oppression, must sympathize with those who now are trying to do the same thing in Russia.

The parallel I have just drawn only goes to show that it makes no difference whether the oppression is bitter or not; men with red, warm blood in their veins will not endure it, but will seek to cast it off.  If we keep our hearts in this matter Russia will be free.

RUSSIAN SUFFERERS

          On December 18, 1905, an entertainment was given at the Casino
          for the benefit of the Russian sufferers.  After the
          performance Mr. Clemens spoke.

Ladies and gentlemen,—­It seems a sort of cruelty to inflict upon an audience like this our rude English tongue, after we have heard that divine speech flowing in that lucid Gallic tongue.

It has always been a marvel to me—­that French language; it has always been a puzzle to me.  How beautiful that language is.  How expressive it seems to be.  How full of grace it is.

And when it comes from lips like those, how eloquent and how liquid it is.  And, oh, I am always deceived—­I always think I am going to understand it.

Oh, it is such a delight to me, such a delight to me, to meet Madame Bernhardt, and laugh hand to hand and heart to heart with her.

I have seen her play, as we all have, and oh, that is divine; but I have always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself—­her fiery self.  I have wanted to know that beautiful character.

Why, she is the youngest person I ever saw, except myself—­for I always feel young when I come in the presence of young people.

I have a pleasant recollection of an incident so many years ago—­when Madame Bernhardt came to Hartford, where I lived, and she was going to play and the tickets were three dollars, and there were two lovely women —­a widow and her daughter—­neighbors of ours, highly cultivated ladies they were; their tastes were fine and elevated, but they were very poor, and they said “Well, we must not spend six dollars on a pleasure of the mind, a pleasure of the intellect; we must spend it, if it must go at all, to furnish to somebody bread to eat.”

And so they sorrowed over the fact that they had to give up that great pleasure of seeing Madame Bernhardt, but there were two neighbors equally highly cultivated and who could not afford bread, and those good-hearted Joneses sent that six dollars—­deprived themselves of it—­and sent it to those poor Smiths to buy bread with.  And those Smiths took it and bought tickets with it to see Madame Bernhardt.