The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-08-05
TWAIN'S FIRST LECTURE.
Subject, the Sandwich Islands or
Anything Else.

CWill NJ Clemens in Ainslee'S0
"On Tuesday evening, Sept. 90. 1856
Samuel Langhorne Clemens made his
/ first appearancesin public at the Acad-
| envy of Music in Pine street, San Fran
! cisco He had just returned from the
Sandwich islands, from where he haG
been writing letters on the islands and
the islanders to the Sacramento Union
The appearance of Artemus Ward some
months previous in San Francisco had
+ aroused an ambition in Mark Twain
to go and do likewise not for the
fame that might come to Linn, not from
the money to be earned, but from a
spirit of pure nlischievOusness. Twain
was one of a Coterie of bohemians
which included Bret Harte, Prentice
Milford and Charles Warren Stoddard
and l can imagine how he chuckled to
himself when he concluded to learn a
new trick and surprise the boys He
secured a hall and published a sort of
Artemus Ward announcement that he
would deliver a lecture about his trip
to the Sandwich islands.
Commenting upon the announce
ment, the San Francisco correspondent
of neighboring newspaper wrote:
q We may expect either gay or grave
remarks, for, by recently published let
tiers, he very fully exhibited the re-
sources of the islands to the great sat
isfactiOn of our business community.
His lecture at this time will have a
peculiar interest, independent of his
own rapidly augmenting popularity,
from the fact that the queen (Emma)
of said country is now in our midst.
Everybody is going. and consequently
a crowded audience will greet the
maiden-I belieYe-lecture of the sage
brusher. He is not at all an eloquent
orator. and | fear, as he himself an
nOunCes it, doors open at I, the trou-
BILE will commence at s o'clock"
" The trouble" is over wrote this
same correspondent under date of Oct.
3, 1856, the inimitable Mark Twain de
livered himself last night of his first
lecture on the Sandwich islands or any
thing else. Some time before the hour
appointed to open his head the Acad-
envy of Music Ton Pine street, was
densely crowded with one of the most
fashionable audiences it was ever my
privilege to witness during my long
residence in this city. The elite of the
town were there, and so was the gov
ernor of the State-Occupying one of
the bOXes-WhOse rOtund face was Suf-
fused with a halo of miTth during the
whole entertainment. The audience
promptly notified Mark by the usual
Observation-Disclosures the suspicious
hour had arrived. and presently the
lecturer came siding and swinging out
from the left of the stage. His very
manner produced a generally vocifer-
GUS laugh from the aSsemblage. He
opened with an apology, by saying that
he had partly succeeded in obtaining
a band, but, at the last moment the
party engaged backed out. He explain
ed that he had hired a man to play the
trombone, but he, on learning that he
was the only person engaged. came at
the last moment and Informed him that
he could not play. This placed Mark In
bad predicament. and wishing to
know his reasons for deserving him at
that critical moment, he replied that
he wasn't going to make fool OF him
self by sitting up there on the stage
and blowing his horn all by himself.
After the applause subsidized he as
sumed very grave countenance and
commenced his remarks proper with
the following well-known sentence:
When, in the course of human
events" etc. He lectured fully an
hour and quarter, and his humorous
sayings were interspersed with geo
graphical agricultural and statistical
remarks, sometimes branching off and
reaching beyond-soaring, in the very
choicest language, up TO the very PIN
nacle Oh descriptive power