July 20 Saturday – Sam and J.B. Pond left the ladies at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac and traveled on to Petoskey, Michigan, where Sam gave a lecture in the Grand Opera House. From Pond’s diary:
Saturday, July 20th, Mackinac to Petoskey.
“Mark” is feeling better. He and I left the ladies at the Grand, in Mackinac, and went to Petoskey on the two o’clock boat and train. The smoke, from forest fires on both sides of the track, is so thick as to be almost stifling. There is a good hotel here.
There was a full house, and for the first time in a number of months I had a lecture room so crowded at one dollar a ticket that many could not get standing room and were obliged to go away. The theatre has a seating capacity of five hundred, but over seven hundred and fifty got in. “Mark’s” programme was just right — one hour and twenty minutes long. He stopped at an hour and ten minutes, and cries of “Go on! Go on!” were so earnest that he told one more story. George Kennan was one of the audience. He is going to give a course of lectures at Lake View Assembly, an auxiliary Chautauqua adjoining Petoskey, where about five thousand people assemble every summer. Mr. Hall, the manager, thought that “Mark Twain” would not draw sufficient to warrant engaging him at $250, so I took the risk outside, and won [Eccentricities of Genius 204].
(Editorial emphasis added); Note: In Petoskey, Sam met with Kennan and also with his old friend Hjalmar Boyesen who were giving lectures at the Lake View Assembly, an auxiliary Chatauqua near Petoskey where 5,000 gathered each summer.
Gaw writes of a transformation in Petoskey, a summer vacation spot:
“…Twain was suffering mentally, as well as physically. His disillusionment was so noticeable, that he was described by one observer as resembling a ‘ bushy-headed careless looking, little wizen-faced man…taken along to look after the baggage.’ He was sick, tired, and dejected. Nevertheless, when he departed only a few days later to continue his journey, a dramatic reversal in his disposition had occurred. He had gained a confidence that, coming so early on a trip that was going to take him around the world, must have seemed to him an auspicious omen.”
The Petoskey Daily Resorter ran a July 21 review of the lecture, which yielded an exceptional turnout, and an interview (Gaw, p.25-6; not in Scharnhorst) for this event:
An audience which packed the Grand Opera house from the orchestra railing to the top row of the rear gallery greeted Mark Twain when the curtain rose last night. Every seat was sold and over a hundred chairs were brought in to try to accommodate those who wished to see America’s greatest humorist, and even then many were turned away. It was the largest, the most cultured, and the best audience ever seen in Petoskey, the receipts being $524…he kept the vast audience in a constant ripple of laughter from first to last, and when he suggested stopping he was greeted by cries of “go on, go on,” accompanied by enthusiastic applause.
Sam enjoyed travel on the lakes. His interview in the same paper this day quoted him:
I should think there would be a great deal of pleasure in yachting in the lakes, but when it comes to yachting in the ocean, it is more than I can do to see the fun. To have one’s internals turned every way at once may be pleasure for some people but not for me.
Of course, when a ship is built long enough to overcome common-sized waves, it is all right. When I came across the Atlantic the last time, I placed a lemon in the center of the table in my stateroom on Saturday evening and it didn’t roll off until the following Wednesday afternoon. That, I think, can be called a pleasure trip.
[ALSO in the interview:]
Clemens is in the best sense “one of the boys.” He delights in the society of congenial friends, and is never happier than when he has found someone to smoke his strong cigars and swap jokes and stories with.
One of the pleasant features of his trip to Petoskey was his meeting with Kennan and Boyesen, the two brightest stars in the Bay View ‘galaxy.’ The three gentlemen are warm friends and mutual admirers, and they all greatly enjoyed the brief visit….
It has been said, and it is undoubtedly true, that Mark Twain is the author of the “Reminiscences of Joan of Arc,” now running in a leading magazine [Harper’s]. When the Resorter asked him about this he smiled and answered in his drawling way, “Well, now, a Cleveland reporter made that same inquiry of me the other day, and I told him I never deny the authorship of anything good. I am always willing to adopt any literary orphan that is knocking about looking for a father, but I want to wait until I’m sure that nobody else is going to claim it. I’m willing to admit now that I wrote “Beautiful Snow,” but the returns are not all in yet on “Joan of Arc.” [Note: Gaw notes that through Pond, Sam claimed he’d had words put in his mouth. Still, they sound like Sam’s words. See July 21]
In Mackinaw, Michigan, Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he added a PS to on July 22, having received a telegram with good news about the Thomas Russell matter:
Your telegram saying the suit had been silenced was a great an solid relief to us, and at once gave us peace of mind and enabled me to turn my whole attention to my infamous readings. And your letter completed our comfort. At Sault Ste. Marie and here I satisfied the Ponds and Mrs. Clemens and Clara, and they say I satisfied my houses. As to satisfying myself, that is quite another matter. It will be some time before I reach that point — but I shall reach it.
Sam felt he was still not up to speed on “The Jumping Frog” and “The Bluejays” segments, and foresaw that he was going to discard those. The rest of the letter deals with Sam’s finances — he felt he might earn $25,000 to $30,000 for a lecture season in the U.S., and was willing to give the creditors one-third of the profits from such a season if they were willing, or an even larger share if he must. What did Rogers think? Was he right? [MTHHR 172-3].
“Cocksure Critic” answered Charles Battell Loomis’ June 15 Critic article in the same magazine, in “The Style and the Man,” p. 44. “Cocksure” argued that the boys in JA — “the Paladin’ and the rest — were all at school with Tom Sawyer.” He challenged Loomis to guess his identity. Loomis later guessed (incorrectly) Rudyard Kipling [Tenney ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1977) 331].