Newark Daily Advertiser, 10 December 1868

MARK TWAIN delivered the second lecture of the Clayonian course last evening, in the Opera House, to a very large and attentive audience. His subject was "Brother Jonathan Abroad." He explained, by way of introduction, that while the educated Americans who travel abroad are accustomed upon their return home to write descriptions of their journeys for the benefit of their friends and to moralize in books and lectures upon what they have seen, the "Vandal" (and he desired to be respectful in the use of the term, which he interpreted to mean those travellers whose pockets were heavier than their store of learning or historical research), had no such opportunity for a multiplicity of reasons, the chief of which was a want of early education. He therefore volunteered to be their historian, having been a close observer of their habits.

The lecturer then described in a most humorous manner, the ramblings of the "American vandal," what he saw and how he was impressed by the exhibitions of ancient grandeur or influenced by old historical surroundings and associations. In the course of his remarks he painted in glowing language and with choice words scenes of cities and places and of statues and paintings, that will be slow to fade from the memories of the audience. Chief among them were descriptions of Venice, of Athens by moonlight from the Acropolis, of Damascus, the most ancient metropolis, of the Sphinx, which has looked upon thousands of years of history with its stony eyes yet reveals nothing, and of the picture galleries of Rome and Milan. These were clothed in the beautiful rhetoric of poetry in prose. In the humorous parts the speaker resembled Artemus Ward in his slow and quaint way of saying very amusing things. The audience was constantly convulsed with laughter, and was continued in its happy humor by quiet touches of wit and sentiment. Altogether it was a most enjoyable evening's entertainment.


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