October 26 Tuesday – Sam gave a political speech at a Republican Rally for James A. Garfield at the Hartford Opera House. The speech and exposition is in Fatout’s Mark Twain Speaking [138-144]. Sam used hieroglyphic notes, which he sent to Howells in a letter of Oct. 28.

Fatout: The Courant of October 27 reported an overflow crowd of fervent Garfield supporters, among whom were a number of Democrats. “It is to be hoped,” the paper observed, that they “reaped some benefit from the political truths they heard.” On the stage were solid citizens and veterans of the Hartford Wide Awake Club of 1860, displaying the transparency they had carried in torchlight processions twenty years before. The Second Ward Garfield Legion glee club entertained the gathering by singing “Garfield and Arthur, the People’s Choice,” “Same Old Crew,” and other numbers. Warner made a speech, the honorable Henry C. Robinson, and Mark Twain, who talked at greater length than usual. The Courant remarked that the audience was “held unbroken to the very close, at 10 o’clock.”

Friends say to me, “What do you mean by this?—you swore off from lecturing, years ago.” Well, that is true; I did reform; and I reformed permanently, too. But this aint a lecture; it is only a speech—nothing but a mere old cut-and-dried impromptu speech—and there’s a great moral difference between a lecture and a speech, I can tell you. For when you deliver a lecture you get good pay, but when you make a speech you don’t get a cent [MT Speaking 138-9].

Woolley’s Livery bill, Jan. 1, 1881 shows use of a hack from opera house this day.

William A. Wood, atty. wrote from Kingston, Mo. to complain it had been some time since Sam promised to send a copy of IA and he wished he would [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Fool”; evidently Sam felt no promise had been made; Wood wrote several times on the issue; finally Clemens stopped opening them.