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Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field

Chapter 33: TRYING TO BE SERIOUS DIDN’T WORK
By Henry W. Fischer
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About This Book

A travel-writer recounts his time with two well-known American humorists while they lived and circulated in European cities, presenting a series of anecdotal sketches and recollections. The pieces capture their conversation, mannerisms, and responses to social customs, language, royalty, art, and contemporary personalities; they mix light-hearted episodes, reflections on fame and temperament, and brief critical remarks about literary and political topics. The arrangement is episodic rather than continuous, offering vivid vignettes that illuminate public and private behavior abroad.

TRYING TO BE SERIOUS DIDN’T WORK

At Brown’s, in London, somebody spoke in glowing terms of Raymond’s portrayal of Colonel Sellers.

“You needn’t praise him for my sake,” said Mark. “I did not write the part for an actor like him at all. I wrote it for Edwin Booth. That is, I had Edwin Booth in mind when I did the play. But Raymond was the superior money-maker. He had the masses with him—and I was pressed for funds.

“As a matter of fact, my Colonel Sellers is a portrait study—a take-off on a fine old Southern gentleman, Colonel Mulberry Sellers, whom I knew in life. He had some funny traits about him, but these never counted with me. It was the pathos in his life that got me. And the pathos, relieved by a few funny things, I intended to put upon the stage. Raymond caricatured the part, and I often felt like taking it away from him.”