April 27 Thursday – The Charles Morgan stopped a half an hour at Baton Rouge, La. [MTNJ 2: 546].

“Baton Rouge was clothed in flowers, like a bride—no, much more so; like a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now—no modifications, no compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia trees in the Capitol grounds were lovely and fragrant…” [Ch.40 LM].

Ralph Waldo Emerson died in Cambridge, Mass. Clemens, Howells, and Aldrich had visited Emerson on Apr. 15.

The Vicksburg Daily Herald ran “Mark Twain visits the Historic City and Takes Some Views of Things as They Exist in These Parts. How He Looked to a Casual Observer.”

“…like a man who had just escaped from a lunatic asylum, whose only sense was in the perfect realization of that fact, and whose every energy was concentrated in an effort to dodge its keeper” [Tenney 10].

Noah Brooks wrote from NYC to advise that Sam would soon receive an invitation from Judge Horace Russell to speak at the next New England dinner of the New York Society [MTP].