November 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Cleveland, Ohio to his mother and family.
“Made a splendid hit last night & am the ‘lion’ to-day. Awful rainy, sloppy night, but there were 1,200 people present, anyhow—house full. I captured them, if I do say it myself. I go hence to Pittsburgh—thence to Elmira, N.Y.” [MTL 2: 280].
Sam also wrote to the President of the Scroll and Key Society, Yale College, thanking them for his honorary membership in the school’s secret society for moral and literary self-improvement. His sponsor: Joseph Twichell.
He also wrote and thanked Joseph and asked his congratulations on his Cleveland success: “—for lo, the child is born!” [MTL 2: 282].
The Cleveland Herald gave the lecture a rousing review:
We know not which to commend, the quaint utterances, the funny incidents, the good-natured recital of the characteristics of the harmless “Vandal,” or the gems of beautiful descriptions which sparkled all through his lecture. We expected to be amused, but we were taken by surprise when he carried us on the wings of his redundant fancy, away to the ruins, the cathedrals, and the monuments of the Old World. There are some passages of gorgeous word painting which haunt us like a remembered picture.
We congratulate Mr. Twain upon having taken the tide of public favor “at the flood” in the lecture field, and having conclusively proved that a man may be a humorist without being a clown. He has elevated his profession by his graceful delivery and by recognizing in his audience something higher than merely a desire to laugh. We can assure the cities who await his coming that a rich feast is in store for them and Cleveland is proud to offer him the first laurel leaf, in his role as lecturer this side of the “Rocky-slope.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer chimed in as well:
The most popular American humorist since the demise of poor Artemus, made his first bow to a Cleveland public, as a lecturer, last evening, at Case Hall. Mark Twain has reason to feel a gratified pride at the pleasant and satisfactory impression he made upon his immense audience. The “American Vandal Abroad” was the title of a slightly incoherent address of between one and two hour’s duration—mingling the most irresistible humor with little flights of eloquence, and making up an entertainment of which it were impossible to tire. The “Vandal” was the type of careless, dry, Yankee tourist, who never lost his equanimity, or coolness, no matter what his situation might be. He looked at a manuscript of Christopher Columbus, with the most infernal sang froid—remarking that it didn’t amount to much as a specimen of penmanship; there were school boys in his country, who could beat it.