Mark Twain Speaking

57. Actors Fund Fair

194 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING· 57 · An Actors Fund Fair was a philanthropic project, assisted by the gratis services of actors, musicians, writers, and socialites, who manned bazaars and put on vaudeville acts. Mark Twain, attending the Philadelphia Fair, praised "a superb performance, and ofprodigious variety. It began shortly after noon and lasted till 4. There were 4,000 people present, and they sat it through." See letter to Olivia Clemens, April 9, 1885, LLMT. Remarks Actors Fund Fair, Academy ofMusic, Philadelphia, April 9, 1885 Ladies and gentlemen: The-er-this-er-welcome occasion gives me an-er-opportunity to make an-er-explanation that I have long desired to deliver myself of. I rise to the highest honors before a Philadelphia audience. In the course of my checkered career I have, on divers occasions, been charged-er-maliciously with a more or less serious offense. It is in reply to one ofthe more-er-important of these that I wish to speak. More than once I have been accused of writing obituary poetry in the Philadelphia Ledger. I wish right here to deny that dreadful assertion. I will admit that once, when a compositor in the Ledger establishment, I did set up some of that poetry, but for a worse offense than that no indictment can be found against me. I did not write that poetry-at least, not all of it. Text / "Obituary Poetry," MTS(lO): 265. The text is misdated. ...