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To one member of his cabinet, at least, it seemed strange and unfitting that he should read aloud to them a chapter from a humorous book by Artemus Ward before taking up the weighty matter of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Artemus Ward, when he sets whole audiences into broad roars of laughter over his odd conceits of "carrying peppermint to General Price" or "going to be measured for an umbrella," may doubt the truth of this assertion; and Lester Wallack or Ned Sothern, when inspiring chuckles that almost threaten the life, may share in the infidelity: but let all these remember that their audiences come to be amused, and that their best drolleries might fall very flat indeed at a Quaker meeting or in a hospital devoted to men with the jumping tooth-ache!
Even in the latest years of his life, though long since dissociated in fact from the category of Artemus Ward, John Phoenix, Josh Billings, and Petroleum V. Nasby, Mark Twain could never be sure that his most solemn utterance might not be drowned in roars of thoughtless laughter. "It has been a very serious and a very difficult matter," Mr.
When Artemus Ward passed through California on a literary tour in 1864, Mark Twain regaled him as he regaled all worthy acquaintances with his favourite story, 'The Jumping Frog'. Ward was delighted with it. "Write it out," he said, "give it all the necessary touches, and let me use it in a volume of sketches I am preparing for the press. Just send it to Carleton, my publisher, in New York."
They made funny reading, but they threw a dangerous flare upon my "past" and put me at a serious disadvantage. It happened that when Artemus Ward had been in town a fortnight before he gave me a dinner and had some of his friends to meet me. Among these was a young fellow of the name of Halstead, who, I was told, was the coming man on the Commercial.
"It was the opinion of my friends on the paper," he replied. "I told them that I was going in for lecturing. They laughed at me, and called me `a fool. Don't you think they were right?" Then we sauntered up Euclid Street, under the shade of its avenue of trees. As we went along, Artemus Ward recounted to me the story of his becoming a lecturer.
He had gone from Cleveland to London, with intervals of New York and the lecture platform, four or five years before I saw him in Boston, shortly after I went there. We had met in Ohio, and he had personally explained to me the ducatless well-meaning of Vanity Fair in New York; but many men had since shaken the weary hand of Artemus Ward when I grasped it one day in front of the Tremont Temple.
"This way, Sir," said the guard; "here you ar," and he pinted to a first-class carriage, the sole ockepant of which was a rayther prepossessin' female of about 30 summers. "No, I thank you," I earnestly replied, "I prefer to walk." I am, dear Sir, Very respectivly yours, Artemus WArd.
And although some of the girls giggled, and some of the men seemed to pity him, I could not help fancying that poor Chalmerson was nearer heaven than any of us all. Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company. From 'Artemus Ward: His Travels' My arrival at Virginia City was signalized by the following incident: But I said: "What name?" "Wait!" he said, and went out.
Yea, verily we were in London. Presently Artemus Ward and "the show" arrived in town. He took a lodging over an apothecary's just across the way from Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, where he was to lecture. We had been the best of friends, were near of an age, and only round-the-corner apart we became from the first inseparable.
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