Question

http://www.online-literature.com/twain/3274/

please someone tell me what this means

Answer 1

It helps to imagine the context -- this was at a large dinner given by the army to General Grant, so I'm supposing a somewhat formal, maybe even staid, occasion. I don't know what this "fifteenth regular toast" was. The fifteenth in a line of toasts for the evening? Some regular toast, that's fifteenth in line? But in any event, somebody made a toast to babies. And Twain runs with it.

The speech is humorous. I don't know whether you were able to catch that. If not, you should read it again slowly. There are bound to be words that are unfamiliar to you. Some you will want to look up. Some you can get by with (at least for the time being) making sense in context.

The entire first paragraph establishes how the baby rules the household. You're meant to picture these soldiers not engaged in their typical activities, in their usual context, but at home, running about to tend to ("at the command of") their infants.

Twain says, for example --

"You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not. And there was only one form of marching in 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."

That entire paragraph paints this picture, of the soldier-as-dad, completely at the mercy of the baby.

In the second paragraph, he regroups and starts on a new angle.

Here's how that paragraph opens --

"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!"

That's a transitional passage -- now he's going to talk about what these babies of today might be in future. There's a future astronomer in that crib, there's a future historian in that one. And so on. And he gets a few digs in, about what kind of world they're going to have to face, about the difficulties of that world.

He concludes on this dramatic and monumental sentence --

"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."

The future president of the US is (so little burdened with all his future grandeurs and responsibilities) is at this moment turning all his attention ("his whole strategic mind") to the problem of getting his big toe into his mouth -- and, Twain says, this same achievement (no disrespect meant) is one that the guest of this evening, that is, General Grant, gave his entire attention to as well, some fifty-six years ago. Furthermore, if the child is "prophecy" to the man (that is, if the child predicts who the man will be), few will doubt he succeeded.

There would have been uproarious laughter at this point.