Mark Twain and George W. Cable entertained about 700 of their admirers in Mercantile Library Hall last night. They gave recitals of selections from their respective work, Mark Twain having four pieces on the programme and Mr. Cable the same number. Cable chose passages from his novel Dr. Sevier, in which he aimed to illustrate the characters of Narcisse, the Creole, Kate Riley and Mary Richley. All his recitals were successful in pleasing the audience, and before the evening was at an end the author of Creole Days was a strong favorite with all present. Mark Twain did not fail, however, to hold his own. He kept the assemblage in excellent humor with his literary surprises, and in the "King Sollemun" passage from Huckleberry Finn, the "Tragic Tale of a Fishwife," he which he illustrated the reckless distribution of genders among the nouns of the German language, and in the other selections he tickled the risibles of the audience to an extent that satisfactorily established the popular quality of his humor at least. Mr. Cable is quietly dramatic in his manner, and has a pleasant, pliable voice. His dialectic efforts, too, are very fair. Twain's voice has the resonance of a cracked steamboat whistle. He enunciates slowly, gesticulates with his head, and keeps either hand in a pants pocket during his stay on the stage. Last night's programme will be repeated this afternoon, and tonight new selections will be given.

"This literary conspiracy," as Mark Twain describes the entertainment given by Mr. George W. Cable and himself, is really a very novel and agreeable affair. The idea of an author reading selections from his own works is not a new one, to be sure; Dickens introduced it many year ago, with pronounced success, and others have since adopted it from time to time, with results of various kinds. But this is the first case, we believe, in which two authors have "joined teams" for reading purposes; and certainly no two more widely-read and popular current writers, and yet two writers more distinctly unlike in their literary methods and their personal characteristics, could easily be brought together as a platform attraction. One is blunt, audacious and strongly individualized; the other is delicate, decorous, and not at all self-assertive except in the sense of aiming to do well what is put before him. They appeal to an audience in ways entirely different, just as they are known to write from entirely different points of view; and not the least interesting feature of the entertainment is the chance it affords for noting the shifting and denoting manner in which their recitations--for they recite almost all their "readings"--are received in turn by their hearers. One compels outright laugher, while the other seldom achieves more than smiles and a light murmur of gratification. Those who applaud the one do not always applaud the other; and yet it is hard to tell at the end which has seemed to make the surer impression, so much depends upon the fact that they must be judged together to be judged definitely.

The first thing, perhaps, which strikes the observer as to Mr. Cable is his small stature. There is an impression somehow that a man who writes big book should be physically commanding, though there is no logic in such a thought; and Mr. Cable is remarkable rather for being diminutive than surpassing in that respect. He does not come up to the ordinary standard either in height or bulk, but is noticeably short, thin and light in movement, and at first glance just a trifle disappointing. It does not appear quite reasonable that a man so daintily constructed can be the author of those vigorous and powerful stories of Creole life. His head is a good one, however, and his face radiant and assuring. It is not what would be called a handsome face; it is too pallid, and it is whiskered out of proper proportion, and the long mustache has a tendency to twitch after a fashion that makes it too obviously superfluous. Mr. Cable is a Southern man, but he does not show it in any way. He looks more like a Jerseyman, and still more like an average New Yorker of sedentary employment and severe social tastes. Even his voice is not Southern; but it is very clear and pleasant, and his enunciation is more than usually distinct. He goes about his work with a relish that is infectious, as if he really believed in the characters and scenes which he portrays; and it is quite evident that he has carefully studies all the means by which character is to be specified and picturesque circumstances made vivid and impressive.

Mark Twain, on the other hand, very nearly realizes the idea one would form of him from reading his book. That is to say, he is robust, unconcerned, careless in gait and gesture, and ludicrously solemn of visage--a peculiarity which there is reason to believe he cultivates for business purposes. His voice is harsh, and his habit of nasal drawling is disagreeable, and there are moments when one wishes he did not find it necessary to do so much hesitating between words and phrases. It is to be inferred, of course, that he thinks his stories good or he would not stand up and tell them night after night in preference to those of anybody else; but it is impossible to avoid wondering now and then if his disinterested and stolid manner is entirely assumed. When Cable is talking it is easy to see that he is not only anxious to be entertaining, but that it is an enjoyment to him at the same time; but nothing of that kind is perceptible in the great humorist's case. His general air is that of a man who is fundamentally tired, and who would gladly skip the performance if he could. But it may be that in this very appearance of being bored with his own grotesque yarns lies the secret of persuading other people to laugh at them. We should not like to say that such a thing is out of the range of reasonable probability. And still we have a notion that some, at least, of the stories he tells would be more certain to hit the mark if the audience could be made to feel that he is himself convinced that they are actually and sufficiently funny.

It is to be regretted, we think that Mr. Cable chooses to make most of his selections from "Dr. Sevier." It is not generally regarded as his best work, whatever he may think of it, and his admirers would be more pleased, we must believe, if he would present scenes and characters from those of his stories that are both more familiar and more satisfactory. We venture to say, further, that even if he must make "Dr. Sevier" the basis of his readings, he should not give preference to the merely minor persons and incidents. The widow Riley is well enough in her way, and he mimics her acceptably, but she is of little consequence at best. And so of the suave and deceptive Narcisse, for whom Mr. Cable seems to have a special partiality, but which is shared, we can warrant him, by very few of his readers. There is room to suspect that he has conceived the idea that it is amusement which the people mostly expect, and that it is therefore incumbent upon him to choose in the main such scenes and characters as can be turned to account in that one respect. If so, then he is mistaken, and the mistake is one that is calculated to disparage his standing as an author. He is not in an exact sense a humorist. His reputation has been won in a wholly different field, and through gifts of a wholly different nature. His strength is in the line of the dramatic, the picturesque, the pathetic; and these qualities, we can not help thinking, should appear more conspicuously in his readings--for other wise the value of his work is not properly shown, nor his books fitly recommended.

The order of Mark Twain's humor, unlike that of Mr. Cable's, is such that it can be readily adapted to platform uses. It is bold, distinct, imperative, and deals in quick and sharp surprises. Mr. Cable's method, on the contrary, is groping, artificial, and entirely lacking in the element of suddenness, so to speak. Humor of that sort serves an excellent purpose in lightening the pages of a work of serious fiction, and is useful also in the respect of emphasizing certain forms of character, but when it is subjected to the test of public reading or recitation its want of inherent force and genuineness is at once manifest. Mark Twain's processes of thought lead inevitably to absurd conclusions; he could not avoid such results if he tried. This is not saying that everything he does is bound to be thoroughly laughable and deserving of high praise. He frequently writes trash, and it is necessary to discriminate in passing judgment upon his various contributions to the literature of the period. The fact remains, however, that he is essentially and at all times a humorist, and a very broad and aggressive one. He does not simply reproduce amusing things that he has seen, and report personal peculiarities with which he has come in contract; [sic] he originates and invents, and extracts drollery from things not in themselves of humorous quality. Mr. Cable has no power of that kind; and therefore his humorous efforts suffer by comparison with those of his fellow-reader, and he is obliged to resort to expedients for making his points that are a confession of weakness.

Neither Mark Twain nor Mr. Cable could take a prize in an oratorical contest. The former is particularly not such an orator as Brutus was. He has defects that are natural and ineradicable not only, but also permits himself to indulge many faults that he might correct. It would hardly be possible for a man to handle himself more ungracefully than he does.....