July 23 Tuesday – The Clemens party arrived in Minneapolis, Minn. (about 160 miles from Duluth) and checked into the Hotel West.

In the evening Sam gave his lecture at the Metropolitan Opera House. In his letter to Rogers the next day (July 24) Sam thought this night went well, well enough to suit him. Fatout lists a reception and supper speech [MT Speaking 662].

J.B. Pond’s diary recorded:

We are stopping at the West Hotel; a delightful place. Six skilled reporters have spent about two hours with “Mark.” He was lying in bed, and very tired I know, but he was extremely courteous to them and they all enjoyed the interview. The Metropolitan Opera House was filled to the top gallery with a big crowd of well-dressed, intelligent people. It was about as big a night as “Mark” ever had to my knowledge. He introduced a new entertainment, blending pathos with humor with unusual continuity. This was at Mrs. Clemens’s suggestion, She had given me an idea on the start that too much humor tired an audience with laughing. “Mark” took the hint and worked in three or four pathetic stories that made the entertainment perfect. The “show” is a triumph, and “Mark” will never again need a running mate to make him satisfactory to everybody.

The next day the Minneapolis papers were full of good things about the lecture. The Times devoted three columns and a half of fine print to a verbatim report of it. The following evening in St. Paul “Mark” gave the same programme, which was commented on in glowing terms by St. Paul papers [Eccentricities of Genius 206].

Fatout writes,

“Of his hair, the Minneapolis Progress observed that it ‘has adopted silver as its standard, and … it adds much to the picturesqueness of the wearer.’” [Lecture Circuit 245].

The Minneapolis Penny Press, p.1 “Mark Twain!” interview is reported in Scharnhorst, Interviews [157-9].

…one of those present asked Mr. Clemens if he had ever visited Minneapolis before. He had years before.

“Why,” put in Major Pond, the manager of the lecturing tour, a jolly fellow: “I was in Minneapolis when there were no saloons here.”

“Well, you didn’t stay long,” flashed back Mr. Clemens, and the group laughed at the major’s expense.

“Don’t shoot, Mr. Clemens,” broke in an anxious reporter, “but which of your works is your favorite?”

The figure on the bed closed its eyes a moment in a quizzical manner, then replied.

“Huck Finn. You see,” he replied, “a book is bound to be a favorite that is easy to write, and after it is written you find you have what you want.”

The Minneapolis Journal, p.6 “Not ‘Roughing It’ Now,” interview is also given in Scharnhorst, Interviews [155-7].

The man who is Samuel L. Clemens to his friends and in private life and Mark Twain to the reading public lay in his bed in room 204 at the West hotel this morning and put as pleasant an aspect as he could on the severe ordeal the reporters subjected him to. The great humorist is suffering from a very troublesome carbuncle, which has forced him of late to take a reclining position whenever possible. …

[After a discussion of carbuncles and his 15 crossings of the Atlantic a question was asked about Clara]:

“Is your daughter Clara, who is with you, the one who was recently quoted as saying she had never read your works?” inquired the reporter.

“I didn’t know that such a report had been sent out,” returned Mr. Clemens. “All my daughters ought to be pretty familiar with my works, seeing that they have edited my manuscripts since they were 7 years old. They always sided with me whenever Mrs. Clemens thought that I had used some sentence or word that was a little too strong. But,” he added, with his delightful smile, “we never stood on that because Madame was always in the majority, anyway. For a long time I used to have Mr. Howells edit all my copy. Ah, but isn’t he a charming writer? I believe Howells is the best we have in America today.

[After Pond’s appearance during the interview:]

“The most magnetic man I ever saw,” declared Major Pond in the hall. “I never saw anything like it. Everywhere we go crowds flock to hear him. Why, on the steamer coming up the lakes the passengers sat around him on the decks all day long in one grand laughing party. I don’t believe that there is another man in America that attracts the people as he does.”

The Minneapolis Tribune of July 24 reported on the July 23 lecture:

SMILED WITH TWAIN

AMERICA’S GREATEST HUMORIST HEARD BY A PACKED HOUSE

The Audience Asked to Follow the Speaker Through Various Experiences – Stories Told Reflecting the Humorous and the Pathetic Phases of Numerous Instances – Many Recognize Old Friends as Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Runaway Jim Are Brought Before Them by Matchless Mimicry – Reception to Clemens at the Commercial Club After the Lecture – The Present Lecture Series Proving Very Successful.

Mark Twain tried an experiment last night. His subject was one of the most brilliant audiences that ever crowded into the Metropolitan and sweltered in the heat of mid-summer. His experiment was upon the arrangement of the stories for their entertainment. The programs distributed were consequently entirely misleading, but the story telling was up to par, and as most of the audience had read Twain it made very little difference.

He started off with that moral lecture on courage, in which he makes the wise observation that every man’s courage has a limit, and then told how his limit was reached when he discovered a dead man in his father’s office at midnight, after one of his truancies. The famous “Jumping Frog,” that proved Twain a humorist and is still regarded as one of his greatest stories, followed. The rambling “Story of the Ram” was particularly humorous and brought out more laughter than any other, but it was not more lifelike than Tom Sawyer’s conversation with Huckleberry Finn and himself on starting a crusade. In this Mr. Twain seemed to point an innocent idea at the socialistic idea of property which half-hidden, half-revealed, formed the basis of his tale.

Then came the “First Theft” of the watermelon, but without doubt the best story, and the one which the audience listened to with hushed attention, was the pathetic struggle with his conscience over his aiding to liberty runaway Darky Jim. Huck Finn and Jim on the raft, both running away from harsh treatment, is one of the prettiest pictures of ante-emancipation life on the Mississippi that has ever been penned. Mark hit the educated conscience theory a pretty hard rap and then, just to show that he could tell a story that was not located in the Mississippi valley or in the far West, he gave the story of the christening. In this Mr. Twain showed himself not only a story writer but a mimic. He copied the Scotch-Irish preacher to perfection, and bowed the large audience out well pleased to have seen and heard America’s greatest humorist.

After the lecture came the reception to Clemens at the Commercial Club. It was fairly well attended, but no doubt hundreds of people would have paid their respects to the veteran fun-maker if it could have been known that no special invitation was expected. Mr. Clemens was accompanied by Maj. and Mrs. Pond, but Mrs. Clemens begged to be excused, as she was tired out with the journey. The affair was simple and informal. Mayor and Mrs. Pratt, President Calderwood, of the Commercial Club, and several other gentlemen presented the callers to the guest of honor and he had his hands full to chat with the many that crowded about to see the humorist as a man.

Mr. Clemens had been in bed all day, and his lecture took nearly all his conserved energy, but he chatted pleasantly and kept everyone at ease with his droll observations. A light refreshment followed the reception in the parlors, and about 11 o’clock Maj. Pond and President Calderwood escorted Mark Twain to his hotel.

Among those at the reception were Mayor and Mrs. Robert Pratt, C.H. Pryor and ladies, Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Preston, Dr. and Mrs. Charles M. Jordan, Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Edsten, Mr. and Mrs. J.S. McLain, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gregory, Mr. and Mrs. James Pye, Dr. W.E. Leonard, C.R. Cameron, M.D. Shutter, E.W. Herrick, Rev. and Mrs. Dr. Sneed, George Strong, F.V. Brown, W.M. Hopkins, A.B. Choat, W.O. Stout, W.B. Stout, D. Willard, Harry Wheeler, W.C. Corbett, W.H. Randall, Al. Warner and Frederick Clarke.

This is the fifth of the series of lectures to be given by Mr. Clemens in a trip around the world. Maj. Pond says that it has been successful far beyond his highest expectation. He claims to have made money enough to take the party around the world and $1,000 to spare up to this point. Twain will give his readings in St. Paul this evening, thence go to Winnipeg and subsequently to Butte and Helena, Mont.

A dinner is to be given to Mr. Clemens and Maj. Pond at the Minneapolis Club this noon.

The Boston Daily Globe, p.6 ran “AUTHORS AS BUSINESS MEN,” a short philosophical treatment of Sam’s business failure.

A great brain skilled in every line of endeavor is a very rare creation.

Horace Greeley had so little business in his makeup that he did not know his own signature, or how it came there on a note involving $20,000.

Author Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) seems to have been fated with the same lack of business ability, and it has left him financially stranded after years of literary toil.

All the world will sympathize with Mr Clemens, and more especially those who know of the head-aching toil and responsibility involved in literary pursuits.

Every man to his forte. Mr Clemens invested his hard earnings in enterprises of which he knew nothing save by the word of possibly well-meaning projectors, and he has come to grief.

The literary earnings of Mr Clemens if safely banked would have made him independent and even affluent. But few men know when they have enough.

Happily the losses of the author of “The Gilded Age” do not include his yet fertile brain.