马克吐温的祝酒词《婴儿》
1879年11月13日
主席、各位来宾：
“婴儿”是我们每人都曾有的特点。我们不幸不能生为女人，我们也并非都是将军、诗人或政治家，但是话题说到婴儿时，我们便有了共同点——因为我们都曾是婴儿。（听众大笑）这世界数千年来一直都不曾为婴儿庆祝过，好像他不值什么东西一样，这实在是一大可耻之事。各位先生，请你们仔细想想，如果你们退回几十年前，当你们刚结婚不久，你们有了第一个孩子，那你们就会记起婴儿实在等于太多的东西了，甚至比其他任何事都更重要。（听众再度大笑）
所有的军人都知道，当这位小家伙来到你的家中时，你就得呈递辞职“书”，而他则完全掌管了全家，你变成了他的仆人、随从，随时要站在旁边听候命令。他不是那种按照时间、距离、天气或者其他事情付给你薪水的指挥官，但你不管在任何情况下都执行他的命令，而且在他的战术手册中，行军的方式只有一种，就是跑步。（众大笑）他用各种最粗野无礼的态度对待你，但即使你们中间最勇敢的人也不敢说一句违抗的话。你可以面对死亡的风暴并予以还击，
但他用手紧抓你的胡子，扯你的头发，拧你的鼻子时，你只得忍受。（听众大笑）当战争之雷声在你耳际响起时，你面对炮弹以稳健的步伐向前迈进；当他发出惊吓的呼叫时，你却掉头向他冲去。当他要吃能安慰他的糖果时，你敢不立即服务吗？不！你会马上去拿他需要的东西！如果要喝奶，你敢反抗吗？不会的，你一定是立即把奶热好，甚至还会吸一吸这热好的、无味的奶水，看看温度是否适当，成份是否弄对了——3匙水、1匙奶粉、一点糖。我现在还没有尝过这个东西呢！（听众大笑，笑声震天）
你这样下去倒是学会了不少事情。较富感情的人仍然相信一个美丽的古老传说：婴儿如果在睡觉时微笑，是因为天使在对他说话。这个传说很美，但实在太不可信了，朋友们。（听众大笑）如果你的婴儿提议每天早晨两点半做例行散步，你难道不是马上爬起来，并强调那是你就要做的事吗？啊！你是受过很好训练的，而当你穿着“不整齐的制服”（众大笑）在房间里来回不安地走着时，你不只是学着婴儿的语调说话，还会用含有母性的声音唱着催眠曲，例如“宝宝睡”。对田纳西陆军团来讲，这真是一件奇迹！然而这对邻居来讲却是件痛苦的事，因为在一里之内的地区，并非人人都喜欢在凌晨3点钟听到军乐。（听众大笑）当你这样持续了二三小时，而婴孩又认为运动和声音都引不起他的兴趣时，很可能整个晚上都要这样奋战下去，直到精疲力尽为止。（听众又是大笑）
婴儿比起你和整个家要能提供更多的东西，他是一种企业，充满着无可压抑的活动，做着他高兴做的事，而且你不能限制他。一个婴儿就够你天天忙了，所以如果你还有理智的话，就不要祈求生双胞胎。如果是三胞胎，那简直是造反了。（笑声雷起）
如今世界上的三四百万摇篮中，有些是我们国家将世世代代视为神圣之物而保存起来的，如果我们知道是哪几个的话。因为在这些摇篮里，未来的栋梁此时正在长牙；未来闻名的太空人正望着银河以一种无精打采的神情眨着眼睛；未来的历史学家正躺在那里，直到他的这一任务完成；另一个，未来的总统正忙着烦恼他的头发还没有长齐之类无聊问题。（听众大笑）其他大约6万个摇篮里装着未来的官吏，还有一个摇篮在旗子之下的某个地方，篮内躺着未来的有名的美国陆国司令，因为此时负担的责任和荣耀极少，于是把他整个富于战略的心都用来寻能把他的大脚趾放入口中的方法。这一类的成就我们今晚的贵宾们在几十年前也曾注意过（我决无不敬之意）。如果这个小孩能证明我们对他的预言的话，恐怕没有人会怀疑他会成功地到那个方法的。（听众大笑，掌声久久不停）
Speech On The Babies
AT THE BANQUET, IN CHICAGO, GIVEN BY THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE TO THEIearnest
R FIRST COMMANDER, GENERAL U. S. GRANT, NOVEMBER, 1879
The fifteenth regular toast was "The Babies--as they comfort us in our sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities."
I like that. We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. It is a shame that for a thousand years the world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if he didn't amount to anything. If you will stop and think a minute --if you will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life and recontemplate your first baby--you will remember that he amounted to a great deal, and even something over. You soldiers all know that when the little fellow arrived at family headquarters you had to hand in your resignation. He took entire command. You became his lackey, his mere body servant, and you had to stand around, too. He was not a commander who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything else. You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not. And there was only one form of marching i
n his manual of tactics, and that was the double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and disrespect, and the bravest of you didn't dare to say a word. You could face the death-storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and twisted your nose, you had to take it. When the thunders of war were sounding in your ears you set your faces toward the batteries, and advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his war-whoop you advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw out any side remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap-bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was right--three parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff yet. And how many things you learned as you went along! Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his slee
p, it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin--simply wind on the stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual hour, two o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up promptly and remark, with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school book much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh! you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing! --"Rock-a-by baby in the treetop," for instance. What a spectacle for an Army of the Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbors, too; for it is not everybody within a mile around that likes military music at three in the morning. And when you had been keeping this sort of thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet-head intimated that nothing suited him like exercise and noise, what did you do? ["Go on!"] You simply went on until you dropped in the last ditch. The idea that a baby doesn't amount to anything! Why, one baby is just a house and a front yard full by itself. One baby can furnish more business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do what you ple
ase, you can't make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection.
Yes, it was high time for a toast-master to recognize the importance of the babies. Think what is in store for the present crop! Fifty years from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag, if it still survive (and let us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase. Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathan--a Great Eastern. The cradled babies of to-day will be on deck. Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big contract on their hands. Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. In one of them cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething--think of it!--and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid interest--poor little chap!--and wonderin
g what has become of that other one they call the wet-nurse. In another the future great historian is lying--and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended. In another the future President is busying himself with no profounder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his hair so early; and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some 60,000 future office-seekers, getting ready to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a second time. And in still one more cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his big toe into his mouth--an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some fifty-six years ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.

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