January 31 Saturday – From Davenport, Iowa, Sam wrote of his recent travels to Livy:

“…struck a sleeping-car train at 12.30 [A.M.], but did not go to bed, as we had to change cars at 2.40. Did it, slept till 6, when we reached Rock Island; then Cable & I walked up through the town & over toward this place, when a sleigh overtook & we rode” [MTP].

Sam and Cable gave a reading in Burtis Opera House, Davenport, Iowa. Clemens included: “King Sollermun,” “A Trying Situation,” and “A Ghost Story” [MTPO].

The first major conflict occurred between Sam and Cable, according to Sam’s Feb. 5 to Livy:

It was announced that unless we left (Davenport) that night at 11, we could not meet our Chicago engagement Monday evening [Feb. 2]. Cable calmly said “I cannot travel on Sunday.” I was furious. I said “You will travel on Sunday, just the same,—this time.” He said, “It is in my contract that I am not to travel on Sunday, & I shall not do it.” I said, “Damn your contract. This is the accident of a change of RR service since the appointment was made; & your contract cannot cover accidents, & has got to yield. I am not going to be made a plaything of in order to humor the corpse of a superstition of the Middle Ages” [MTP]. See Feb. 5 entry for the resolution.

Brander Matthews (1852-1929) reviewed HF for the London Saturday Review, observing that though a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the book was of a “higher level” than its precursor. Matthews identified one aspect that has made the book one of the greatest American novels:

We see everything through his [Huck’s] eyes—and they are his eyes and not a pair of Mark Twain’s spectacles. And the comments on what he sees are his comments—the comments of an ignorant, superstitious, sharp, healthy boy, brought up as Huck Finn had been brought up….one of the most artistic things…is the sober self-restraint with which Mr. Clemens lets Huck Finn set down, without any comment at all, scenes which would have afforded the ordinary writer matter for endless moral and political and sociological disquisition [Budd, Reviews 260-1]. See also AMT 2: 475.

January 31? Saturday – Possibly from Davenport, Iowa, Sam wrote to Charles Webster, directing him to:

“…drop in & tell them the agreement was not carried out, & expect them to take the book away & refund the $270 already paid” [MTP]. [The circumstance is not identified further.]