September 19 Thursday – In Sydney, Australia, Sam gave the first of some 30 performances down-under at Protestant Hall on Castlereagh St. The lecture was titled, “Mark Twain at Home” (No.1). The hall “easily seating 2000,” the “best hall in Sydney”. Tickets sold from 1-5 shillings. Fatout writes of Sam’s Sydney engagements:

“In Sydney nine days, he spoke four times to audiences resplendent in full dress and patent leather shoes, the social aspect enhanced by advertising performances as ‘Mark Twain At Home.’ People came in from points distant over a hundred miles. Two faithful listeners everywhere were Livy and Clara, who acted as scouts reporting on the varying effects of readings, and of pauses in the stories of the golden arm and grandfather’s old ram” [Lecture Circuit 253].

Several newspapers reviewed the performance, including: the Australian Star, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Evening News, Argus — all on Sept. 20, and the Melbourne Punch on Sept. 26.

Shillingsburg adds this: “May have been the day on which Twain went fishing at Bondi and heard several shark stories, the germ of the story of Cecil Rhodes (FE, ch 13); claimed to have caught a fish himself” [“Down Under” 7]. She also writes that “Clara sent a note for Twain to Ethel [Sybil] Turner thanking her for her book Seven Little Australians” (see Sam’s Sept. 24 to Turner) [8]. The Australian Star, the same newspaper which had editorialized angrily about Sam’s stance on protectionism reported on Sept. 20:

…such an ovation, such an outburst of uncontrollable enthusiasm as but rarely comes within the experience of the average man. The man’s work and the feeling of it was evidently in the hearts of his audience, who not only cheered but waved hats and handkerchiefs as he stepped out from behind the Stars and Stripes [Shillingsburg, At Home 41-2].