Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-02-18
MARK lTwAIN.
what Dom Piatt says about the
T1Tl- -Isaan Great HImOrist. el.H .sa

rIl iguQ Great HumOrfst. al'I ts Il
1 had the honor of dining with this
distinguished humorist at Welkers, on
an invation from the Hon. s. s. Cox.
This was my FIRST meeting with Mark
Twain. had seen his portrait in the
Galaxy, and it gave me an insane idea
of the humorist | recollect, when l
was a boy, that the enterprising Mon
sieur Dorfuille in his museum at Cincin-
natl, had the head Of murderer named
Hoover, who had been very properly
hanged, preserved in a jar Of alcohol,
and on exhibition, This woodcut of
Mark Twain looked to me more like
Hoovers head than anything else, and
was entirely unlike the countenance that
beamed on us last night. One would
not pick Mark out from a crowd as a
humorist; indeed one would not venture
to pick him out as literary character
at all He looks more like member OF
the Ohio Legislature (if you know
what that is) than anything else. That
is sort Of a man who had
narrowly escaped being made a
County Commissioners, and so was re-
turned to the Legislature. He is not
only careless about his clothes, but he is
positively ignorant on the subject, and
labors under the impression that the gar
ment that hangs so loosely upon his
shoulders is coat. From under his
bushy hair his face peers out, presenting
a square, -proportioned forehead,
keen gray eyes and hooked nose, we'll
developed mouth, exhibiting a good deal
Of decision, and a chin that rounds out,
supporting the whole, in no part of
which will you find particle of the
humor for which he is distinguished.
His face, on the contrary, is sad one,
and when all are in roars about him he
continues in state of dense solemnity.
His voice is the most extraordinary yyoice
| ever heard. 1t is cross between
Horace Greeley and Tim Lincoln. He
drawls his words out in the most prepos-
ferrous manner, that gives drollery to
what he says utterly beyond description
1t is quite impossible for him to pro-
duce in his conversation serious effect |
The exceedingly droll quaintness of his
solemn countenance, added to the drawl
Of his voice, makes one laugh when the
speaker is really striving to be serious.
For example: | had said to him that a |
contract TO be funny at regular intervals
struck me as rather heavy, and he replied |
by saving that was so; while he might be
Sufficiently interested to raise laugh, |
when left to himself, it became dreary |
stuff when brought out in that manner on
contract. o"Only think, said he, II |
knew that confounded thing had to be
done, and, with dear friend lying dead |
before me, and my wife half distracted |
over the loss, / had to get off my articles
SO as not to disappoint my publishers,
and when / sat down with board and a |
knife. to engrave that map of Paris / did |
SO with a heavy heart, and in a house of |
lamentation." Now this was rather a |
sad picture. and he meant to impress me |
with the sorrow he had felt, but yet it
reouired the greatest struggle on my part
TO refrain from laughing as L heard It.
felt ashamed of myself afterward, for God
knows there is no wit or humor in that
nnbonny storv nor did Mr. C1amenta