Mark Twain is best known for his books, short stories, and humorous observations on life. But did you know he also gave impromptu speeches? A literary icon of the day, The New York Times was quick to report his remarks after a musical performance in Norfolk, Connecticut.
On October 5, 1906, Mark Twain took to the stage after his daughter’s vocal debut as a contralto and recounted his first appearance before a crowd.
My heart goes out in sympathy to anyone 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 theater. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could not escape. I got to the theater 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 theater, and I peaked through the little peak holes they have in theater 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 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 the 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 had 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 sat–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 think you for your appreciation of her singing, which is, by the way, hereditary.
Now that’s real. One of the most respected writers and authors of the day bearing the soul of his stage fright for everyone to see. The best part is when he describes how he planted people in the audience to give a positive reaction… a little bit like modern-day political rallies. But he wasn’t ashamed at all.
He was just real.
Lovely! I am paralyzed by stage fright – once I chose a ten-page paper over a ten-minute class presentation. Since dear Mark and I have that in common, maybe we also share a literary genius…I wish.