 | Mark Twain`s speeches; with an introduction by William Dean Howells. |  |
OBITUARY POETRY.
ADDRESS AT THE ACTORS' FUND FAIR, PHILADELPHIA, in 1895.
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 offence. It is in reply to one of the 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 offence than that no indictment can be found against me. I did not write that poetry-at least, not all of it.
| Mark Twain`s speeches; with an introduction by William Dean Howells. | |