ed
A GRAND TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION may be expected; in fact, the public are
privileged to expect whatever they please.

Dress Circle, $1.00 Family Circle, 50c
Doors open at 7 o'clock The Trouble to begin at 8 o'clock

The story of that first lecture, as told in Roughing It, is a faithful
one, and need only be summarized here.

Expecting to find the house empty, he found it packed from the
footlights to the walls. Sidling out from the wings--wobbly-kneed and
dry of tongue--he was greeted by a murmur, a roar, a very crash of
applause that frightened away his remaining vestiges of courage. Then,
came reaction--these were his friends, and he began to talk to them.
Fear melted away, and as tide after tide of applause rose and billowed
and came breaking at his feet, he knew something of the exaltation of
Monte Cristo when he declared "The world is mine!"

It was a vast satisfaction to have succeeded. It was particularly
gratifying at this time, for he dreaded going back into newspaper
harness. Also; it softened later the disappointment resulting from
another venture; for when the December Harper appeared, with his
article, the printer and proof-reader had somehow converted Mark Twain
into "Mark Swain," and his literary dream perished.

As to the literary value of his lecture, it was much higher than had,
been any portion of his letters, if we may judge from its few remaining
fragments. One of these--a part of the description of the great volcano
Haleakala, on the island of Maui--is a fair example of his eloquence.

It is somewhat more florid than his later description of the same scene
in Roughing It, which it otherwise resembles; and we may imagine that
its poetry, with the added charm of its delivery, held breathless his
hearers, many of whom believed that no purer eloquence had ever been
uttered or written.

It is worth remembering, too, that in this lecture, delivered so long
ago, he advocated the idea of American ownership of these islands,
dwelling at considerable length on his reasons for this ideal. --[For
fragmentary extracts from this first lecture of Mark Twain and news
comment, see Appendix D, end of last volume.]--There was a gross return
from his venture of more than $1,200, but with his usual business
insight, which was never foresight, he had made an arrangement by which,
after paying bills and dividing with his manager, he had only about
one-third of, this sum left. Still, even this was