February 19 Saturday – The Hartford Courant reported that the 60,000 copy of Innocents Abroad had been printed, some 45,000 sold [MTL 4: 78n1]. An article attributed to Sam, “Nasby’s Lecture,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 153].
The San Francisco News-Letter, “Town Crier” page, carried a snide blurb about Sam’s marriage:
February 20 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Joel Benton (1832-1911), former owner of the Amenia Times. Benton wanted to sell the Buffalo Express some European letters. Sam said the Express did not need European letters [MTL 4: 73-4]. Sam and Livy again teamed up on a letter written to Livy’s mother . Sam teased Livy about her cooking and housekeeping:
February 23 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss, responding to his two letters (one now lost; see Feb. 15 for the other).
Friend Bliss—
Why bless your soul, I never have time to write letters these days—takes all my time to carry on the honey-moon. I would like to talk to Mrs Bliss [Amelia Bliss] two or three or four hours about my wife now, if she could stand it——she used to stand it very well when I was at your house.
February 24 Thursday – Sam wrote a eulogy for Anson Burlingame, which ran in the Buffalo Express the following day.
February 25 Friday – Sam’s eulogy for “Anson Burlingame,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 153]. Sam said of the man who helped him get the scoop on the Hornet disaster:
February 26 Saturday – Sam & Livy wrote from Buffalo to Jervis Langdon.
February 28 Monday – An article attributed to Sam, “The Blondes,” was printed in the Buffalo Express. The article criticized a dancing troupe called the Lydia Thompson’s Blonde Burlesque Troupe.
Late February – Livy’s cousin, Hattie Marsh Tyler, “who lived in the Buffalo area, dropped in. She filled Olivia’s ears with complaints about the female ‘help’ available in Buffalo. Around that time, just three weeks into running her new household, Olivia had needed to mildly scold servants Ellen and Harriet.
March – Between March 1870 and March 1871 – Sam wrote 87 pieces for the New York Galaxy [Wilson 109]. He was offered two and a half times the normal rate for a regular humorous section in the magazine. He agreed only if the label of humor was not applied to his work. He thus wrote under a column titled, “Memoranda,” and his first article was published in May.
Livy’s cousin, Anna Marsh Brown stayed with the Clemenses “briefly” [Reigstad 134].
March 2 Wednesday – The Clemenses invited George H. Selkirk and wife Emily over for the evening. Selkirk was one of Sam’s Express partners [Reigstad 133].
Jervis Langdon replied to the Feb. 26 from Sam:
Dear Samuel,
March 3 Thursday – Sam and Livy (in shaded text) finished their letter to Jervis Langdon.
Your two letters came this morning, father, & your dispatch yesterday afternoon. (Mem.—Ellen’s in the stable & the horse in the attic looking at the scenery.)
March 4 Friday – In Buffalo Sam replied to Lewis Frank Walden (whose letter not extant) explaining why he wasn’t lecturing:
“I was married a month ago & so have cast away the blue goggles of bachelordom & now look at the world through the crystal lenses of my new estate” [MTL 4: 86].
March 6 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Robert and Louise Howland (b. 1848?) with a note to James Warren Nye. Howland was a former mining buddy and partner of Sam’s in 1861. Nye was the former governor of Nevada and now Senator.
March 7 Monday – Sam’s brief disclaimer of a rumor that he was about to leave Buffalo was printed in the Express, daily from this day through Mar. 11. “I am a permanency here” [MTL 4: 89].
March 9 Wednesday – An article attributed to Sam, “More Wisdom,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 159].
March 11 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Francis P. Church. Sam offered to edit the humorous department of the Galaxy for $2,000 a year if they’d release copyright back to him upon publication.
March 12 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Big Thing,” was printed in the Buffalo Express. Commenting on an article from the Louisville Journal, Sam wrote:
How familiar that old gushing, tiresome bosh is!…I wish to ask the Louisville reporter the old familiar question, so common among reporters in the mines: “How many ‘feet’ did the doctor give you?” (“Feet are shares.) We always got “feet,” in Nevada, for whooping about a Nearly-Pure-Silver-National-Debt-Liquidator in this gushing way” [McCullough 166].
March 15 Tuesday – Sam accepted an invitation from a Mr. Nicholls to read for the G.A.R. [MTL 4: 92]. Note: Reigstad credits Martha Gray (Mrs. David Gray) with persuading Twain to speak as part of the Grand Army of the Republic’s lecture series. Reigstad writes:
March 16 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed an unidentified person, declining to lecture “during the present season” [MTL 4: 92].
March 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Hattie Booth, an autograph seeker [MTL 4: 93].
March 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Mysterious Visit,” a delightful spoof on income taxes and deductions, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 166]. A second article attributed to Sam, “Literary Guide to Williams & Packard’s System of Penmanship,” also was printed in the Express [McCullough 170].
March 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James T. Fields, senior partner in Fields, Osgood & Co., a prestigious Boston publishing company. Fields preceded William Dean Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
March 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath, his lecture circuit agent.
“Dear Red: I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live & I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out” [MTL 4: 94].
March 26 Saturday – In the morning Sam looked out his master bedroom window and saw flames on the roof of 455 Delaware Street. He and Patrick McAleer (1846-1906), his coachman for many years, raced to help. McAleer rang fire-alarm box 62 at the corner of Virginia and Delaware. Reigstad writes:
March 27 Sunday – Sam and Livy wrote in the afternoon from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon.
“It is snowing furiously, & had been, the most of the day & part of the night…albeit snow is very beautiful when falling, its loveliness passes away very shortly afterward. The grand unpoetical result is merely chilblains & slush” [MTL 4: 98-100].