The New Haven Daily Palladium,
December 28, 1869

Public Entertainments.

Every one who went to Music Hall last evening--and there was a good house despite the mist and mud--expected to go home splitting their sides with laughter. People everywhere are familiar with "Mark Twain," but comparatively few have yet had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Samuel H. Clemens. An hour with Mark is like gentle dew upon a withering flower; when he lifts the curtain and comes as Mr. Clemens, the lecturer, it is like the tickling of a sleepy boy with a feather--perfectly ravishing until the eyes are opened, but which he doesn't care to experience a second time. Mr. Clemens is a true wit, with his pen, and his works will live after he has gone, but his course as a lecturer will end when the curiosity of his thousands of readers shall have been satisfied by a good square look at him. His lecture on "Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands," is a tissue of nonsense from beginning to end, and his delivery is as disgusting as the lecture is foolish. Still, people clamor for a look, and we are inclined to think one dose will be enough for the most admiring. The audience last evening enjoyed, not the hearty laugh they anticipated, but a protracted, vexatious titter, and felt relieved when the end came.


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