November 23 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Allyn Hall, Hartford, Conn. The Hartford Courant (Nov. 25, p2) review summarized both traditional the traditional lecture audience “class” and expectations, and Sam’s unique “conversational” approach which mixed both serious and comedic:

THE HUMOROUS LECTURE—MARK TWAIN.—It is very difficult to define what humor is, so much depends upon attendant circumstances, upon peculiar phrases, upon manner. The unexpected is a prime element in all wit and humor. No matter how good a story is, and told by the prince of narrators, if we know the “point” beforehand, it does its effect upon us. This is one reason why what Shakespeare says is true:—

“A jest’s propriety lies in the ear 
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 
Of him that makes it.”

This is only a half truth. A clean stroke of wit is good the world over. Humor depends largely upon the person who creates it. It may be much in the voice and manner (as it does in nearly all comic actors), but it is note the less genuine humor. The moment you attempt to analyze a joke its essence evaporates, its flavor is gone; it is only an incongruous association of ideas, and when we put reason to it, it ceases to be funny. We know no better test of a funny thing than its power to make the hearer laugh. If it does not make you laugh, it is not funny to you, and that is the end of it. To get a joke into a Scotchman’s head is said to require a surgical operation. That is very funny, but probably a Scotchman wouldn’t see it.

There is room for some one to write a readable essay on the “humorous lecture” as contrasted with the ordinary “lecture.” The Lecture is, especially in New England, a peculiar institution. We are almost warranted in saying that lecture-goers are a peculiar class. Everybody understands what you mean when you say a “lecture audience.” There is none more respectable in the world…..

But the humorous lecture is a different production, and properly speaking, is not a lecture at all. Albert Smith, who kept all London laughing for a decade over his story, illustrated with drawings, of the ascent of Mt. Blane, called it an “entertainment.”

…

The hall had not been so crowded, on any occasion, for a long time. And the vast audience sat for over an hour in a state of positive enjoyment, in a condition of hardly suppressed “giggle” and expectancy of giggle, with now and then a burst of hearty, unrestrained laughter. The laughter was never forced; people laughed because they could not help it. And what was it all about?

Mr. Clemens, a self possessed gentleman, with a good head and a face that led one to expect humor, with an unembarrassed but rather non-chalant manner, was walking about the stage, talking about the Sandwich Islands; talking, and not repeating what seemed to be a written lecture. It was a conversational performance. His stories, his jokes, his illustrations, were told in a conversational way, and not “delivered.” With a half lingering hesitation in his speech, and a rising inflection of voice, he talked exactly as he does in private; …

The art of the lecture consisted in the curious mingling of grave narration and description with the most comical associations, and with occasional flashes of genuine wit. And the whole was leavened by a manner that would make the fortune of a comedian.

Sam wrote from Boston to Hiram J. Ramsdell (1839-1887), Washington correspondent for the New York Tribune and the Cincinnati Commercial. Sam had known Hiram when they were in Washington in the winter of 1867-8. Hiram had asked for a lecture before the Washington Correspondent’s Club [MTL 3: 403].