Courtesy Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
From the Montreal Gazette, February 19, 1885
This is my own transcription sans the list of names of those attending
the reception at the Windsor hotel prior to the show.
MARK TWAIN-CABLE
The Two Noted American Authors in Montreal
Reception at the Windsor yesterday afternoon – The entertainment at the
Queen's Hall.
Yesterday afternoon the Athenaeum club invited about 500 of the leading
citizens of Montreal to the Windsor hotel to meet Mr. Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain), the world-renowned humorist, and Mr. G. W. Cable, the
celebrated American littérateur and novelist. The reception commenced
at half-past four and lasted for two hours. The handsome drawing-rooms
of the Windsor were thrown open to visitors, and some two hundred of our
leading citizens were presented. The conversational powers of the
gentlemen must have been taxed to the utmost in saying something to each
of the visitors. In personal appearance Mr. Clemens and Mr. Cable
differ from each other as much as in the style and manner of their
writings. Mr. Clemens was dressed in a dark gray lounge coat, and
looked as modest and unassuming as if his name was never heard outside
of his natal town. Mr. Cable, who is not nearly as well known, was
dressed in a more conventional manner than his confrère. He is shorter
in stature and a luxuriant growth of well-trimmed dark beard ornaments
his face. After the reception, refreshments were served, and the
gathering broke up shortly after six o'clock.
Amongst those invited and present were: [Here is a long list of people
far too tedious for me to type out at this time. A PNG copy of the
review is available on the Queen's Hall page of my web site].
IN QUEEN'S HALL
Probably not since the immortal Charles Dickens delighted the English
speaking people of the old and new world with readings from his own
works has there been an event in which the public take such an interest
as the present reading tour of the S. L. Clemens and Geo. W. Cable. The
Queen's hall last night was thronged with an appreciative and expectant
audience. There is only one Mark Twain in the world who can write such
genuine fun. Those who saw the performance last evening may come to the
conclusion that there is only one who can really be a true exponent of
that fun, and that man is Mark Twain himself. Nearly as much can be
said for the distinguished novelist, Mr. Cable. There are a great many
writers in the world—more than those whose works will ever be read—but
few writers can appear before an audience and electrify and delight it
by readings from the works of their own pen. Mr. Cable can do this, and
in a manner which cannot be rivalled. An entertainment in which the
programme consists entirely of readings, to avoid being monotonous must
be super-excellent, and the programme last evening attained this high
degree of merit. The chief success of any entertainer lies in his power
to make the audience enjoy themselves, and the more he succeeds in this
the greater his success. Mark Twain last night, from the moment he
appeared on the stage until he announced that after his last reading
there would be “a short interval of twenty-four hours,” kept the
audience in roars of laughter. Mr. Cable was equally entertaining, and
the audience laughed with him and in turn felt sad where he rendered,
with a pathos which few could impart into the reading, some of the
pathetic descriptive passages from Dr. Sevier. His selections were all
taken from this his latest novel. Nothing could have been better than
his reading of the colloquial passages between Kate Riley, Richling and
Ristofalo. His assumption of the Widow Riley's brogue and “winning
ways” were perfect of their kind. But his greatest success was in the
reading of “Mary's Night Ride.” The language used in the narrative is
exceedingly [???] and the pathos moving. His reading of the descriptive
passages was sweet and entertaining beyond compare, and in the exciting
scene where the heroine (Mary) escapes the bullets whistling round her
he rose, Irving-like, to the occasion and showed himself gifted with a
dramatic talent of more than ordinary calibre. At the close of this
reading Mr. Cable was enthusiastically applauded and recalled to bow his
acknowledgements to the audience. Mark Twain read selections from
“Huckleberry Finn,” also “A Trying Situation” and “The Tragic Tale of a
Fishwife.” The intrinsic humor of the selections was intensified a
hundredfold by the reading and mannerism of their author. He got off
some of the best jokes with a solemnity of style as if there really was
nothing in them, and the audience was forced to laugh again and again.
His dissertation on the incongruities of the sexes of the German
language was funny in the extreme. While everyone else in the hall was
laughing the cause of all the fun, in a nonchalant pose with his left
arm akimbo and the index finger of his right hand supporting his chin,
looked as solemn as a judge. His very appearance under the
circumstances was in itself most amusing. Perhaps there was not one of
the audience last evening who had not read Mark Twain's works, and the
general feeling was that to appreciate them thoroughly it would be
necessary to read them again. The Twain-Cable performance is not only
amusing but it is instructive and no one can afford to miss it. The
engagement closes tonight and a change of programme is announced.
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