Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-05-16
Mark Twain.


New York Correspondence Chicago Trbune.l
Being present, the other evening, at the
repetition Of Mark Twain's Sandwich Is
lands, " at Steinway Hall, it seems that it
must be n satisfaction to 4 man to draw such
immense audiences. Every square foot Of
space was filled. which was all the more re-
markable because lecturers. with very few
exceptions, do not draw here. 1t is extreme
ly rare to see Steinway Hall even half full
at any lecture. and the crowd who went on
two occasions to listen to 4" Twain has,
understand, never been quite equalled there.
lie has had invitations from all over the
country to discourse on the Hawaiian group; ;
but he has declined most Of them, from excess
of time and unwillingness to make money.
He could easily clear SIC, 600 a season lectur-
ing were he 50 minded but his two babies
at home-whom, he says, he does not love,
but IS trying to learn to respect-claim his
undivided attention.
Clemens is now occupied with his fourth
book d" John Ball. =" of which he has written
nearly one-third. Those who have seen the
Ms. say it will be ndescribably funny He
looks at the native Britons at such a variety
of angles, and detects them in so many gro
tesque positions, that they ought to be able to
laugh at themselves as presented by Twain. -
Here let me mention that a Russian journal
not long since, in speaking of Henri Taine,
the renowned French critic, confounded him
with - Mark Twain,' and mentioned his
" lnnocents Abroad - is inanentirely different
vein from his other works. and likely to give
him high reputation as one of the cleyerest
humorists Of the continent. If the Russian
Journal had been printed in Ireland. the story
would seem more plausible, and yet it is said
to be strictly true.
PECULIAR LITERARY CAREER.
Clemens's literary career has been singular.
| 1t is not very long since he was a Mississippi
river pilot, with no more idea ofwriting than
Of applying for the Professorship of Dead Ian
guages at the University ofJena. Later, he
went to the Pacific coast, and made a local
reputation as a contributor of humorous
sketches to the San Francisco press The
first thing that advertised him here was his
d" Jumping Frog" afterward bound and is
sued, with other sketches, in this city, and
finding only a limited sale After a little
while he came East to embark on the Quaker
City " with crew ofpious pilgrims, in search
of classic and theological scenes and associa-
tions. The result of the voyage, as is well
/ known. was tne 'lnnocentS Abroad. which.
on his return, he prepared in such quantity
that nearly half of the Ms had to beomitted
to get it within the proportions even of a
large subscription book.
Anybody with the least sense of hmor
would suppose that very few pages of the
- lnnoeents " could be read without finding
publisher. 1t was not so, however. Gle
mems offered his Ms. to a number of publish
ers here, in Philadelphia and Boston, and
none OF them, strange to say, could find
enough in it to warrant their giving it to the
world. He thought. as it was professedy
humorous, that the objection to it lay in its
capaeIty to make people laugh, and asserted,
IN ms justification, that some such thing,
scattered through book of the kind. ought
not to be considered an insuperabIe obstacle
to publication. Having gotten nearly through
with the regular firms, he was induced to
try Hartford subscription house, and sent
his copy accordingly to the American publish
ing company. Recognition of the merit of
the work was very slow in that quarter Sc
veral of the leading stockholders could see
nothing in it (what moldy old tomb-stones
they must have been, to be sure y; but the
principal man of the company car ried it home
one night, and made the remarka bic discove-
! ry that the book was deucedly d.rolI Con-