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When it comes down to moral honesty, limpid innocence, and utterly blemishless
piety, the apostles were mere policemen to Cable... The south's finest literary genius. In him & his person I have learned to hate all religions. He has
taught me to abhor & detest the Sabbath-day & hunt up new &
troublesome ways to dishonor it. |
 George Washington Cable |
| To the EDITOR of THE COURANT: -- On the evening of the fourth of April
the gifted southerner whose name appears above, will deliver at Unity Hall,
in Hartford, a lecture upon "Creole Women," sauced with illustrative
readings from "The Grandissimes" and other of his books. Since
he compliments us by choosing Hartford as the scene of his first experiment
upon the northern platform, I trust we shall return him the compliment of
a full house, and a hearty greeting. Mr. Cable is a reader and speaker whose
matter is of the finest quality and whose arts of delivery are of distinguished
excellence. It seems well to state this, in order that the public may know
that Mr. Cable has something more to offer his audience, as an attraction,
than his celebrated person alone. I heard him read in New Orleans last spring
and in the proof-sheets of my forthcoming book I find this reference to
that experience: "Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing of French
dialects that the country has produced; and he reads them in perfection.
It was a great treat to hear him read about Jean-ah Poquelin, and about
Innerarity and his famous 'pigshoo' representing 'Louisihanna Rif-fusing
to Hanter the Union,' along with passages of nicely-shaded German dialect
from a novel which was still in manuscript."
"He also read conversations occurring between those charming Creole women of 'The Grandissimes' and in his mouth and through his art the music of their quaint and crippled English acquired a new and richer melody." From such high authority as the voice of President Gilman of John's Hopkins university come praises of Mr. Cable's recent reading in Baltimore, which render this added testimony of mine next to unnecessary. That this forthcoming lecture is not without interest outside of Hartford
is evidenced by the fact that considerable deputations of well-known Bostonians
and New Yorkers are coming here to attend it, and have already ordered
their tickets. Also, I may state that Mr. Cable has been invited to repeat
this entertainment in the Madison Square theatare, New York, at an early
day, |
 Sam Clemens with George Washington Cable during their 1884-85 lecture tour. |
Cable had been scouting the country alone for three years with readings
from his novels, and he had been a good reader in the beginning for he had
been born with a natural talent for it, but unhappily he prepared himself
for his public work by taking lessons from a teacher of elocution, and so
by the time he was ready to begin his platform work he was so well and thoroughly
educated that he was merely theatrical and artificial and not half as pleasing
and entertaining to a house as he had been in the splendid days of his ignorance. - Mark Twain in Eruption |
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