Mark Twain's journeys re-visited

by RICHARD JONES

FAMED American author and raconteur Mark Twain visited many towns and cities during his rail tour around Australia in the 1890s.

To mark his time in central Victoria during October 1895 a sold-out literary luncheon was held recently in Bendigo's historic Town Hall.

Speakers were former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, a self-avowed railways nut, and author and former Keating speech writer and Prime Ministerial adviser Don Watson. Watson held the diners spellbound as he drew comparisons between an unlikely pair - Twain and current American president George W Bush.

"Some similarities are certainly there," said Watson. "They both loved the vernacular, they both lived in the southern states and they both presented as somewhat contradictory in nature."

The most striking divergence between the pair lay in the use of language.

"You would never catch Twain saying what George W Bush is reputed to have said," said Watson. "The trouble with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur !"

Apart from his acclaimed book on the ever-encroaching use of weasel words and official-ese in everyday language in the 21st century Watson also penned the introduction to The Wayward Tourist.

This tome, published last year, recounts Twain's adventures in Australia.

Not only did he visit Bendigo and deliver two lectures at the Royal Princess Theatre on 23 and 24 October 1895, Twain was also held up for six hours at the Castlemaine railway station waiting for a connecting train.

He famously described Maryborough in central Victoria as "a railway station with a town attached."

Maryborough's magnificent station, with its 500 metre long platforms, had been completed just five years before Twain's arrival there.

In fact Twain (real name Samuel Clemens) caught 16 different trains in his travels around five Australian states leading Fischer, in his role as chairman of Tourist Australia, to propose a rail heritage route.

This route would follow the trail blazed by Twain 112 years ago and would bolster tourism to regional Australia, Fischer believes.

"The Mark Twain visit marks him as one of our Top 10 early tourists with his writings about Australia remaining brilliant and timeless," he said.

Nevertheless, the Bendigo Advertiser of the time reporting on Twain's lectures in Bendigo thought it was reasonable to expect a large audience at the first talk. "Unfortunately the prices of admission were not as popular as Mark Twain and the result was but a moderate attendance," the paper reported.

The raconteur's first story was one from his childhood when he had wagged school to go fishing. His excuse was that the Biblical Adam had also done what he ought not have and he loved Adam, for it was so natural that human beings should do what they are forbidden to do.

Twain's only regret was that Adam had not been forbidden to eat the serpent. He was bound to have done it and the world would have been happy, the author concluded.

There was a much bigger attendance the next night for Twain's second talk, the Bendigo Advertiser reported. Here he launched into an outrageous tale about the Irish Mark Twain Club of Corrigan Castle. The punchline revealed that the membership of this club was just one.

Twain seemed impressed by Bendigo. He was driven through the wooded outlying country and shown the summit of One Tree Hill where he remarked on "the mightiest and loveliest expanse of forest clad mountains and valleys that I have seen in all Australia."

The taste and public spirit of the citizens also impressed him with the town's streets "adorned with 105 miles (168 kilometres) of shade trees."

29 October 2007

australianrules.com.au

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