14 April 1868 • San Francisco, Calif. (MS: CtHMTH, UCCL 02781)
Please see that no reports or synopses (even the most meagre one) are made of my lecture.1explanatory note I must repeat, here & elsewhere, & every point that appears in print must be left out—which is ruinous to me. I ask this as a particular, personal favor, . A synop & beg that you will guard me against the injury of a synopsis.Ⓐemendation 2explanatory note
Williams (1824?–81) was the San Francisco Evening Bulletin editor responsible for “dramatic criticism, and book reviews,” according to his fellow editor William C. Bartlett. He had probably helped to puff the lecture, and was very likely the one who reviewed it for the Bulletin. Born in Utica, New York, Williams served as a printer’s apprentice on the Utica Herald before working his way through Williams College, after which he rejoined the Herald as an associate editor until about 1854 or 1855, when he traveled for two years in Germany, France, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Returning home, he was invited to join the Albany Evening Journal as associate editor. He remained with the Journal until 1865, when he accepted an offer from the Bulletin and moved permanently to California. By then he had had some experience as a lecturer “who both amused and instructed,” according to Bartlett, who also praised his “sound literary judgment and catholic spirit,” as well as his “vigorous, condensed, and nervous style” (Bartlett 1881, 324–27; San Francisco Evening Bulletin: “Deaths,” 1 July 81, 3; “Samuel Williams,” 2 July 81, 1, reprinting the Oakland Tribune). Clemens not only wrote this request to Williams, and possibly to other journalists as well, he evidently passed out cards with his message at the lecture itself: the reporter for the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle explained that
just before leaving the hall, we received a card, on the back of which was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, (under which of course was a translation) the following words: “As I intend to repeat my troubles to-morrow night, don’t give any of my good sayings in the morning papers. Yours, Mark Twain.” (“Platt’s Hall,” 15 Apr 68, 3)
Clemens’s efforts were apparently successful: no synopsis of his lecture appeared in any of the extant San Francisco newspapers.
The lecture was a financial success for Clemens, earning him about sixteen hundred dollars (at one dollar per ticket). He had made all seats “reserved,” and the demand for tickets was so great that he agreed to repeat the lecture on 15 April, “in order to accommodate the thousands of besiegers who were repulsed at the door” (advertisement, San Francisco Times, 15 Apr 68, 2). But the lecture itself drew mixed reviews. The Bulletin critic (presumably Williams) published what the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise later called, in reprinting it, “;the most appreciative notice of any of its cotemporaries” (“Of Mark Twain’s lecture ... ,” 18 Apr 68, 2). Yet even the Bulletin expressed disappointment with the lecture:
Mark Twain ... asked his friends of the press to refrain from publishing any synopsis of his discourse, and, having arranged that matter satisfactorily, he proceeded with his lecture. There were many telling points in it—flashes of humor which convulsed his hearers with laughter, and gleams of sentiment which almost induced the wish that he might not resume the humorist’s vein. Several passages—descriptive of the solemn grandeur of Rome’s gray ruins, and the dreary desolation of the cities of Palestine—were really eloquent. But, on the whole, the lecture was not as completely prepared or warmly received as his first one on the Hawaiian Islands, and after he dismissed the audience there was a general expression of regret that he had not said more about Palestine, etc., and less about the bald-headed, spectacled and sedate old pilgrims on the Quaker City. (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” 15 Apr 68, 3)
The Alta agreed, noting that the “lecture was not so well prepared as the first one delivered on the Sandwich Islands, though two bursts of eloquence called out hearty applause—on the ruins of Palestine, and on what the Pilgrims will not forget” (“‘Mark Twain’s’ Lecture,” 15 Apr 68, 1). Similar, though usually briefer, notices appeared in the Critic, the Examiner, the Times, the Golden Era, and doubtless other newspapers as well (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” San Francisco Critic, 15 Apr 68, 3; “Amusements,” San Francisco Examiner, 15 Apr 68, 3; “Amusements,” San Francisco Times, 15 Apr 68, 1; “Mark Twain’s Lecture,” Golden Era 16 18 Apr 68: 4). After the second performance, the Alta editor did his best to smooth over Clemens’s earlier lapse:
The repetition of the lecture on the Holy Land Excursion last night, was vastly gratifying to the audience and the lecturer; he had “got the hang of the sermon” and delivered it with more nonchalance, assuming that confidential conversational tone that breaks down all barriers between the man on the stage and the people occupying the seats. The description of Palestine as it is, the compressed substance of a dozen volumes of travels, is the gem in the lecture, though for poetic eloquence, the summary of things that cannot be forgotten, bears off the palm. (“Mark Twain’s Lecture Repeated,” 16 Apr 68, 1)
Two weekly journals, on the other hand, were much more critical. The San Rafael Marin County Journal was disgusted that “this miserable scribbler, whose letters in the Alta, sickened everyone who read them, and of which the proprietors of that paper were heartily ashamed has the audacity and impudence to attempt to lecture to an intelligent people” (“Sickening,” 18 Apr 68, 2). And the California Weekly Mercury called the lecture “a most palpable failure ... foul with sacrilegious allusions, impotent humor, and malignant distortions of history and truth” (“Mark Twain,” 12 19 Apr 68: 5). Before he could learn of these remarks, however, Clemens took the California Steam Navigation Company’s daily steamer to Sacramento on 16 April, where he lectured the following night. After also lecturing in nearby Marysville (18 April), Nevada City (20 April), and Grass Valley (21 April), he returned to Sacramento, and on 23 April took the 6:30 a.m. Central Pacific train for Nevada (Langley 1867, “Advertising Department,” vii; “Railroads and Stages,” San Francisco Alta California, 23 Apr 68, 4).
MS, Cyril Clemens Collection, Mark Twain Memorial, Hartford (CtHMTH).
L2 , 209–210; Cyril Clemens, 15; Lionberger, 123.
The verso of the MS page is annotated by a previous owner: “From A. J Roll | 1342 Bellamy St | Santa Clara | California | U.S.A. | To whom it may concern: The Mark Twain letter on the other side was put in Mr. Williams’s scrapbook by Mr. Williams himself. I procured the page as is from his son. A. J. Roll.” Cyril Clemens published the letter in 1932, and Lionberger cited him as its owner when he reprinted it in 1935. The Cyril Clemens Collection was donated to CtHMTH in November 1985.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.