To W. D. Howells, in America:

SANNA, SWEDEN, Sept. 26, '99.

DEAR HOWELLS,--Get your lecture by heart--it will pay you. I learned a

trick in Vienna--by accident--which I wish I had learned years ago. I

meant to read from a Tauchnitz, because I knew I hadn't well memorized

the pieces; and I came on with the book and read a few sentences,

then remembered that the sketch needed a few words of explanatory

introduction; and so, lowering the book and now and then unconsciously

using it to gesture with, I talked the introduction, and it happened to

carry me into the sketch itself, and then I went on, pretending that

I was merely talking extraneous matter and would come to the sketch

presently. It was a beautiful success. I knew the substance of the

sketch and the telling phrases of it; and so, the throwing of the rest

of it into informal talk as I went along limbered it up and gave it the

snap and go and freshness of an impromptu. I was to read several pieces,

and I played the same game with all of them, and always the audience

thought I was being reminded of outside things and throwing them in, and

was going to hold up the book and begin on the sketch presently--and so

I always got through the sketch before they were entirely sure that it

had begun. I did the same thing in Budapest and had the same good time

over again. It's a new dodge, and the best one that was ever invented.

Try it. You'll never lose your audience--not even for a moment. Their

attention is fixed, and never wavers. And that is not the case where one

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The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete