December 10 Thursday – Bret Harte gave a lecture in Farwell Hall, Chicago, titled “American Humor.” Though briefly treating Mark Twain, Harte offered praise:

“To-day, among our latest American humorists, such as Josh Billings, The ‘Danbury Newsman,’ and Orpheus C. Kerr, Mark Twain stands alone as the most original humorist that America has produced. He alone is inimitable” [Tenney, Supplement American Literary Realism, Autumn 1981 p162].