Struggles and Triumphs, P. T. Barnum [good books to read in english .txt] 📗

as possible from the impertinent intrusion and disturbance of a crowd from the streets and lanes of the city, I beg that no one may be admitted within the doors of the church during the very few moments that we expect to be there, but our invited friends only,”⁠—it would certainly, in such a case, be my pleasure to comply with your request, and to meet your wishes in every particular; and I think that even Mr. W⁠⸺ S⁠⸺ will agree that all this would be entirely reasonable and proper. Then, tell me, how would such a case differ from the instance of which you complain? Two young persons, whose only crimes would seem to be that they are neither so big, nor so stupid, nor so ill-mannered, nor so inordinately selfish as some other people, come to me and say, sir, we are about to be married, and we wish to throw around our marriage all the solemnities of religion. We are strangers in your city, and as there is no clergymen here standing in a pastoral relation to us, we have ventured to ask the favor of the bishop of New York to marry us, and he has kindly consented to do so; may we then venture a little further, and request the use of your church in which the bishop may perform the marriage service? We assure you, sir, that we are no shams, no cheats, no mountebanks; we are neither monsters nor abortions; it is true we are little, but we are as God made us, perfect in our littleness. Sir, we are simply man and woman of like passions and infirmities with you and other mortals. The arrangements for our marriage are controlled by no “showman,” and we are sincerely desirous that everything should be ordered with a most scrupulous regard to decorum. We hope to invite our relations and intimate friends, together with such persons as may in other years have extended civilities to either of us; but we pledge ourselves to you most sacredly that no invitation can be bought with money. Permit us to say further, that as we would most gladly escape from the insulting jeers, and ribald sneers and coarse ridicule of the unthinking multitude without, we pray you to allow us, at our own proper charges, so to guard the avenues of access from the street, as to prevent all unseemly tumult and disorder.

I tell you, sir, that whenever, and from whomsoever, such an appeal is made to my Christian courtesy, although it should come from the very humblest of the earth, I would go calmly and cheerfully forward to meet their wishes, although as many W⁠⸺ S⁠⸺’s as would reach from here to Kamtschatka, clothed in furs and frowns, should rise up to oppose me.

In conclusion, I will say that if the marriage of Charles S. Stratton and Lavinia Warren is to be regarded as a pageant, then it was the most beautiful pageant it has ever been my privilege to witness. If on the contrary, it is rather to be thought of as a solemn ceremony, then it was as touchingly solemn as a wedding can possibly be rendered. It is true the bishop was not present, but Mr. Stratton’s own pastor, the Rev. Mr. Willey, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, read the service with admirable taste and impressiveness, and the bride was given away by her mother’s pastor and her own “next friend,” a venerable congregational clergyman from Massachusetts. Surely, there never was a gathering of so many hundreds of our best people, when everybody appeared so delighted with everything; surely it is no light thing to call forth so much innocent joy in so few moments of passing time; surely it is no light thing, thus to smooth the roughness and sweeten the acerbities which mar our happiness as we advance upon the wearing journey of life. Sir, it was most emphatically a high triumph of “Christian civilization”!

Respectfully submitted, by your obedient servant,

Thomas House Taylor.

Several thousand persons attended the reception of Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb the same day at the Metropolitan Hotel. After this they started on a wedding tour, taking Washington in their way. They visited President Lincoln at the White House. After a couple of weeks they returned, and, as they then supposed, retired to private life.

Habit, however, is indeed second nature. The General and his wife had been accustomed to excitement, and after a few months’ retirement they again longed for the peculiar pleasures of a public life, and the public were eager to welcome them once more. They resumed their public career, and have since travelled several years in Europe, and considerably in this country, holding public exhibitions more than half the time, and spending the residue in leisurely viewing such cities and portions of the country as they may happen to be in. Commodore Nutt and Minnie Warren, I should add, usually travel with them.

I met the little Commodore last summer, after his absence in Europe of three years, and said:

“Are you not married yet, Commodore?”

“No, sir; my fruit is plucked,” he replied.

“You don’t mean to say you will never marry,” I remarked.

“No, not exactly,” replied the Commodore, complacently, “but I have concluded not to marry until I am thirty.”

“I suppose you intend to marry one of your size?” I said.

“I am not particular in that respect,” but seeing my jocose mood, he continued, with a comical leer, “I think I should prefer marrying a good, green country girl, to anybody else.”

This was said with a degree of nonchalance, which none can appreciate who do not know him.

To make sure that a lack of memory has not misled me as to any of the facts in regard to the courtship and wedding of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, I will here say that, after writing out the story, I read it to the parties personally interested, and they give me leave to say that, in all particulars, it is a correct statement