Thank you so much, Scott Holmes, for sharing these tour reviews with us.
But I'm not sure what to make of the confusing dates.  Is it possible the
Delaware paper was quoting a Cleveland paper as an introduction to the
lecturers' appearance later?  Would be fun to see how the Delaware reviewer
does after exposure to the Cleveland assessment.

Arianne Laidlaw

On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 7:18 PM, Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> I received this from Millie Barnhart Corresponding Secretary Delaware
> Co. Genealogical Society.  She did the transcription herself.
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: Millie Barnhart <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: re: Mark Twain
> Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:30 -0400
>
> Mark Twain speaks in Delaware Ohio 10 February 1885 – (This is copied
> with all punctuation, spellings, etc. just as it was in the newspaper.
> Please note that Samuel Clemens birthday was 30th of November, not
> December as is written in the article)
>
> Delaware Herald, 29 January 1885 – SKETCH OF MARK TWAIN
>
> Personal Appearances – Career as a Correspondent & Editor – A Hard
> Worker (Cleveland Leader)
>
>                Mark Twain has a big head stuck on by a long neck to a
> pair of round shoulders. He came on to the stage as though he were half
> asleep, and he looked to me as though nature, in putting him together,
> had, somehow, gotten the joints mixed. He has a big face, a nose large
> enough to represent any kind of genius, and eyes large, black and
> sleepy. He has a thick, bushy mane of hair, which is now iron gray, and
> a bushy mustache which overhangs his characteristic mouth. As he stood
> on the stage he reminded me much of a mammoth interrogation point, and
> as he drawled out his words with scarcely a gesture his voice made me
> think of a little buzz saw slowly grinding inside a corpse. He did not
> laugh while he uttered his funniest jokes, and when the audience roared
> he merely stroked his chin or pulled his mustache.
>
>                Still he could not help being satisfied, and I do not
> doubt the contrast of his first days in Washington, when he came here
> years ago and had hard work making money enough to pay his board bills,
> came forcibly before him. Though it is not generally known, Mark Twain
> was once a Washington correspondent. He came here from the west with
> Senator Stewart and for a time wrote letters to The Alta California and
> The New York Tribune. He used to drink a good deal in those days, and
> was hardly considered a reputable character. It was shortly before this
> that he made the trip from which he wrote “Innocents Abroad,” and this
> book he wrote here from the notes he took during his tour. The book made
> him both famous and wealthy.
>
>                His manuscript he first sent to several prominent
> publishers, but they all rejected it, and he was about giving up in
> despair when a Hartford company took hold of it. The result was they
> made $75,000 off the book and sold more than 200,000 copies of it. It
> was after this that Mark Twain tried editing The Buffalo Express. A man
> who worked on the paper at the time told me today that this venture of
> his was not a success. He loafed around the office, guying the office
> boy, and telling jokes and stories rather than writing, and the only
> fruit of his Buffalo experience was his marriage which, like “Innocents
> Abroad,” turned out well. His wife brought a pot of gold into the family
> and when he got to Elmira he found that his father-in-law had made his
> the present of a brownstone front and thrown in a coachman with a bug on
> his hat.  Twain did not remain in Elmira, however, but went to Hartford
> and began to write “Roughing It.” This was also successful and
> established his name.
>
>                Mark Twain probably makes as much out of his books as any
> other writer in the country. He has his Hartford firm publish his books
> for him, and he so arranges it that he gets a royalty on those printed
> in Europe. He is better known in foreign lands than any other American
> writer, and he is an international character. Many of the scenes are
> taken from real life, and his descriptions of travel are in the main
> true. He is a hard worker and while at Hartford he writes in his
> billiard room in the attic. Like Trollope, he believes that there is
> nothing like a piece of shoemaker’s wax pm the seat of one’s chair to
> turn out a good literary work, and, like Blaine, he has a fixed amount
> of writing for each day’s duty. He rewrites many of his chapters and
> some of them have been scratched out and interlined again and again. Mr.
> Clemens – everyone knows Mark Twain’s name is Clemens – will be 49 years
> old on the 30th of December. He is a Missouri man by birth and has taken
> care of himself ever since he was 15. He has been a practical printer, a
> steamboat pilot, a private secretary, a miner, a reporter, a lecturer,
> and a bookmaker.
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Arianne Laidlaw A '58