December 29 Monday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. Clemens included “Tragic Tale of the Fishwife,” and “Infestation of Phelps’ cabin with snakes and rats” [MTPO].

Later, Sam wrote from Pittsburgh to Livy. Besides adding that he’d “Heard a wonderful banjo-player to-day,” named “Cable—but no kin,” [Dec. 30 to Livy] he wrote of the performance:

Well, mamma, dear, the child is born. To-night I read the new piece—the piece which Clara Spaulding’s impassibility dashed & destroyed months ago—& it’s the biggest card I’ve got in my whole repertoire. I always thought so; It went a-booming; & Cable’s praises are not merely loud, they are boisterous. Says its literary quality is high & fine—& great; its truth to boy nature unchallengeable; its humor constant & delightful….It took me 45 minutes to recite it (didn’t use any notes) & it hadn’t a doubtful place in it, or a silent spot [MTP].

Note: The piece referred to was the episode in Huck Finn where Tom and Huck put snakes in Jim’s cabin and then set him free with “a crowd of farmers after them with guns.” Ironically, this comic ending to the book is often criticized in literary circles.

Not all newspaper reviews were positive. Here’s a snooty one from the Pittsburgh Dispatch:

The whole performance was a hippodrome. Either’s works shine better in books than when read by them. The unbecomingness and the charlatanism of an author’s going around the country reading from the proofs of a book he is about to publish are degrading to literature. How Mr. Clemens could allow himself to do it is past comprehension. Still, viewed in the light of the miserable performance of Mr. Cable, he may feel that he is a benefactor, for his recitals are so much superior to those from “Dr. Sevier.” At best it is very sad to see men who have done clever literary work, “barn-storming” the country with their own works. If the works are good, it is a lowering of the dignity of the authors that is anything but commendable, and if they are not good, to read them in public is almost a crime. It is true Dickens read his works on the platform, but it never added to his fame, and it did lower him in that he became general, common [Dec. 30, 1884].

The Pittsburgh Penny Press on page 4 printed “Mark Twain Gets Shaved / And Talks to a … Reporter at the Same Time” [Scharnhorst, Interviews 60-1].

The Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph, page 1: “Talk with Twain / ….His Comments on Authors, Magazines and General Literature” [62-4].

The Pittsburgh Post, p 4: “Mark Twain / …He Gives His Experiences with an Interviewer and Jokes at His Own Expense” [64-5].