ranges of sublime women:  the Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey Gamp; the list is endless—­but I will not call the mighty roll, the names rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the loving worship of the good and the true of all epochs and all climes.  Suffice it for our pride and our honor that we in our day have added to it such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale.  Woman is all that she should be gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous impulses.  It is her blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift the fallen, befriend the friendless—­in a word, afford the healing of her sympathies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted children that knock at its hospitable door.  And when I say, God bless her, there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of a wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart will say, Amen!

WOMAN’S PRESS CLUB

          On October 27, 1900, the New York Woman’s Press Club gave a tea
          in Carnegie Hall.  Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor.

If I were asked an opinion I would call this an ungrammatical nation.  There is no such thing as perfect grammar, and I don’t always speak good grammar myself.  But I have been foregathering for the past few days with professors of American universities, and I’ve heard them all say things like this:  “He don’t like to do it.” [There was a stir.] Oh, you’ll hear that to-night if you listen, or, “He would have liked to have done it.”  You’ll catch some educated Americans saying that.  When these men take pen in hand they write with as good grammar as any.  But the moment they throw the pen aside they throw grammatical morals aside with it.

To illustrate the desirability and possibility of concentration, I must tell you a story of my little six-year-old daughter.  The governess had been teaching her about the reindeer, and, as the custom was, she related it to the family.  She reduced the history of that reindeer to two or three sentences when the governess could not have put it into a page.  She said:  “The reindeer is a very swift animal.  A reindeer once drew a sled four hundred miles in two hours.”  She appended the comment:  “This was regarded as extraordinary.”  And concluded:  “When that reindeer was done drawing that sled four hundred miles in two hours it died.”

As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known for these many years.  I am filled with the wonder of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction.  If I could have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something.