Recollections of Joan of Arc is a serious book; I wrote it for love, and
never expected it to sell, but you have pleasantly disappointed me in
that matter. In your hands its sale has increased each year. In 1904
you sold 1726 copies; in 1905, 2445; in 1906, 5381; and last year, 6574.
“MARK TWAIN’S FIRST APPEARANCE”
On October 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by
his daughter in Norfolk, Conn., addressed her audience on the
subject of stage-fright. He thanked the people for making
things as easy as possible for his daughter’s American debut as
a contralto, and then told of his first experience before the
public.
My heart goes out in sympathy to any one who is making his first
appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct process of
memory I go back forty years, less one month–for I’m older than I look.
I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me then
only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as a
lecturer. I knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the
theatre. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could
not escape. I got to the theatre forty-five minutes before the hour set
for the lecture. My knees were shaking so that I didn’t know whether I
could stand up. If there is an awful, horrible malady in the world, it
is stage-fright-and seasickness. They are a pair. I had stage-fright
then for the first and last time. I was only seasick once, too. It was
on a little ship on which there were two hundred other passengers. I–
was–sick. I was so sick that there wasn’t any left for those other two
hundred passengers.
It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theatre, and I peeked
through the little peekholes they have in theatre curtains and looked
into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too. By-and-by it
lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.
I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle
themselves through the audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said
anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were to
pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind lady in a box up
there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the Governor. She was to
watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to
deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into
applause.
At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag
in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to
get started without it. I walked up and down–I was young in those days
and needed the exercise–and talked and talked.
Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a
moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my
hearers. When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected.
They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I happened to glance
up at the box where the Governor’s wife was–you know what happened.
Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-fright left me,
never to return. I know if I was going to be hanged I could get up and
make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my
feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for her
for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her first
appearance. And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her
singing, which is, by-the-way, hereditary.
MORALS AND MEMORY
Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor at a reception held at
Barnard College (Columbia University), March 7, 1906, by the
Barnard Union. One of the young ladies presented Mr. Clemens,
and thanked him for his amiability in coming to make them an
address. She closed with the expression of the great joy it