January 14 Friday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Mechanic’s Hall, Utica, New York [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Troy, New York to Livy. Neither poor weather nor a fire in the lecture hall stopped Sam from his lecture. He was upset that the Troy Daily Times had published his Cambridge lecture of the night before. At 7 a fire broke out in the lecture hall.
January 13 Thursday – Sam wrote from Cambridge, New York to Livy about quitting smoking—did she really want him to?
“I shall treat smoking just exactly as I would treat the forefinger of my left hand: If you asked me in all seriousness to cut that finger off…I give you my word I would cut it off” [MTL 4: 21]. Note: Presented in this way, how could Livy ask Sam to quit smoking?
In the evening, Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Hubbard Hall, Cambridge, New York [MTPO].
January 12 Wednesday – Clemens lectured (“Savages”) in Rondout, New York.
January 11 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Union Place Hall, West Troy, New York.
Note: Sam’s next two letters to Livy, No.s 174-5, after West Troy and Rondout lectures are lost [MTL 4: 20n10].
January 10 Monday – At noon, Sam wrote from Albany New York to Livy, apologizing for his Owego lecture she had attended. The reviews were good, however. “What an eternity a lecture-season is!” Sam wrote that he was reading Ivanhoe. “He is dead, now” [MTL 4: 15-16].
That evening he lectured (“Savages”) in Tweddle Hall, Albany. Afterward in bed he wrote again to Livy. “Had an immense house, tonight, little sweetheart, & turned away several hundred—no seats for them” [MTL 4: 17].
January 8 Saturday – At midnight in the Troy House, Troy, New York, Sam wrote to Livy. He wrote her a second letter later in the day. His second letter marveled at the insignificance of the earth in the universe and of man. “Does one apple in a vast orchard think as much of itself as we do?” Sam was reading “The Early History of Man” in Eclectic Magazine for Jan. 1870 [MTL 4: 12].
Sam also wrote his agent, James Redpath, of “one-horse” towns, bills, and the like.
January 7 Friday – In the wee hours after midnight, Sam wrote from Amenia, New York to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
January 6 Thursday – Sam wrote at 9 AM from Dan Slote’s in New York to Livy.
“The Amenia train has been changed to 3.30 instead of 4, PM., & so it is just right. I can arrive there at 7.21, whoop my lecture & clear out again.”
He’d been reading Robinson Crusoe and kept losing the book. “It is just like me. I must have a nurse” [MTL 4: 1].
January 5 Wednesday – Sam left at 8 PM and traveled overnight by train from Elmira to New York City [MTL 4: 2n1, 3].
January 5-6 Thursday – Clemens wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Interviewing the Interviewer” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].
January 4 Tuesday – Sam and Livy traveled thirty miles east of Elmira where Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Wilson Hall, Owego, New York. They returned to Elmira that evening [MTL 4: 5n2].