ARTEMUS WARD

Loie [Fuller], like myself--both red-headed--knew that ambition is a horse that more than one can ride. I grabbed that idea 'way back in the seventies when Artemus Ward came down lecturing Virginia way. Art was a success and I liked the lordly nonchalance with which he spent two or three hundred dollars on a tear. I helped him spend plenty, I assure you, but when Art and the brown taste in my mouth had gone, I took stock. `Sam,' I said to myself, quite familiar-like, `Sam, your mental adipose is as good as his, and in originality you can beat him dead.' After these encouraging remarks, I set to work making good.
- quoted in Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field, Fisher

also see Mark Twain on Artemus Ward in The New York Times

Artemus Ward