November 29 Saturday – Sam and Cable gave a second reading in Academy of Music, Baltimore, Md. From the Baltimore Morning Herald of this day:
The announcement that Mark Twain and George W. Cable would give readings from their works filled the lecture room of the Academy last night. Applause broke out when a short, slender figure, clad in evening dress, advanced with a dainty tread to the front of the stage and bowed to the audience. The figure was that of Mr. Cable. His hair is dark and his eyes gleam now with humor and now with pathos.
He wears a full beard and long, well-twisted mustachios that droop on either side and form a complete semi-circle. His feet and hands are small and the latter he uses with all the grace and delicacy of a woman. Mr. Cable’s voice is pitched in a high but musical key. His modulation possesses a charm which suggests the rippling of a stream. It rises and falls with almost every word.
With the exception of the Creole songs which Mr. Cable sang, all his readings were from his “Dr. Sevier.” To say the least, they were delightful, and were heartily appreciated by the audience.
Mark Twain no sooner put his head outside the flies than the audience began to laugh as well as applaud. There was something indescribably droll about the very look of the man.
He, too, wore the conventional swallow tail. He came forward with a lazy air. It was as much as he seemed able to do to drag one foot after another. His dark, iron-grey hair was brushed back. He has a heavy brownish moustache. As he walks he stoops slightly. He never smiles. When he says anything that creates laughter, he simply pauses, throws his head a little on one side and peers sleepily out of the corner of his eye.
His favorite use of his hands is either to scratch the back of his head or with the outside of his thumb to rub his half-closed eyes. The program of last evening will be repeated at 2 P. M. to-day. An entirely new program will be produced to-night at 8 o’clock [Railton].
Sam also submitted to an “interview” by the Baltimore American. (See Fatout, Mark Twain Speaks for Himself, p137.)
Sam wrote from Baltimore to Livy
“Livy darling, Judge Turner has been in—however, I believe you do not know him. Ross Winans has just gone. He came to invite me to dinner to-morrow, but we dine with President Gilman of Johns Hopkins University, or President Hopkins of John Gilman’s University, darned if I remember which” [MTP]. See Nov. 30 for more on Gilman.
Sam had seen Thomas Winans’ “palace” years before (see Apr. 26, 1877 entry), and was fascinated with the technological features of the home. “Winans married one of the Whistler girls…” Sam explained. He was about to receive Richard Malcom Johnston, author of Dukesborough Tales (Gribben includes this book in Sam’s library, p357¸ claiming it is “widely believed to have influenced the drunk’s bareback riding act that so astonishes Huckleberry Finn in chapter 21”) but had refused an invite from “That dam Goddard” (unidentified). Sam had telegraphed an acceptance of an invitation from Mrs. Dean Sage, of Brooklyn. He thanked Livy and the children for pictures and letters: “The pictures are an immense company to me” [MTP].
The New York Tribune and the New York Herald ran articles about the tampering with page 253 of Huck Finn which created an obscenity (Giving Uncle Silas a penis—well, that is, one that showed.) This from the Herald:
MARK TWAIN’S ALTERED BOOK
Mr. Charles L. Webster, nephew of Mark Twain, yesterday offered a reward of $500 for the apprehension and conviction of the person who so altered an engraving in “Huckleberry Finn” as to make it obnoxious. Mr. Webster said yesterday: “The book was examined before the final printing by W.D. Howells, Mr. Clemens, the proofreader and myself. Nothing improper was discovered. On page 283 was a small illustration with the subscription, ‘What (sic) do you reckon it is?’ By the punch of an awl or graver, the illustrations became an immoral one. But 250 copies left the office, I believe, before the mistake was discovered.
Had the first edition been run off, our loss would have been $25,000. Had the mistake not been discovered, Mr. Clemens’s credit for decency and morality would have been destroyed.” Mr. Webster thought that the culprit would soon be discovered. He believed no malice or bribery existed, and absolved the American Publishing Co. from any connection with the act [The Twainian, Mar-Apr 1946, p2].
Note: Sam may have prompted Webster to make the aspersion against his late publisher. At the time Sam was in a bitter legal battle to regain his copyrights or to force Am. Pub. Co. to go after the Alabama pirates, The Coker Co. (See Nov. 20 entry.)
The Baltimore American, p.4, printed “Mark Twain’s Ideas.” Sam complained about traveling, and discussed audience psychology and Americanisms of speech [Scharnhorst, Interviews 53-6].