November 25 Monday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Charles H. Webb, sending a penciled draft of the first two acts of a play about the Quaker City trip. He also confessed his inability to find a sweetheart named “Pauline” (unknown) and asked to be remembered to her [MTL 2: 115].
November 24 Sunday – Sam wrote from Washington to Frank Fuller about his strategy for lecturing somewhere other than “in the provinces.”
November 22 Friday – Sam arrived in Washington, D.C. and roomed with his new employer, Senator William Morris Stewart (1827-1909) in a second-floor apartment run by 70-year-old Miss Virginia Wells. “Clemens took his meals and socialized at the Round Robin bar at the Willard Hotel (see insert picture)….a favorite watering hole of Washington power brokers” [Bliss 64].
November 21 Thursday – After a dinner with the New York Herald’s editorial board, Sam took the night train to Washington, D.C [MTL 2: 109 n2; Bliss 58].
Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Twenty-five” dated Sept. 6 ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 168-72].
Elisha P. Bliss (1822-1880) of the American Publishing Co. wrote to Clemens:
November 19 Tuesday – Charles Dickens arrived in Boston to begin a five-month tour, lecturing and reading from his works [MTL 2: 104n3].
Quaker City arrived at New York City at 10 AM to complete the excursion, 5 months and 11 days long.
November 17 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Twenty-four” dated Sept. 5 ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 163-68].
November 15 Friday – QC left St. George at 8 AM. [MTL 2: 105 n5].
November 14 Thursday – Stormy weather continued, delaying the departure of the QC [D. Hoffman 23].
November 13 Wednesday – A gale from the NW came up, continuing throughout the day. Just after midnight: The ship was anchored about a mile from shore. A rising wind and current made rowing back difficult. Mary Fairbanks wrote:
“Our oarsmen tugged manfully, and ‘Mark Twain’ held the rudder with a strong hand, while the spray dashed over his Parisian broadcloth and almost extinguished his inevitable cigar” [D. Hoffman 22].
November 12 Tuesday – The group rode in carriages to the Gibbs Hill lighthouse, an unusual structure built in 1844-6, mostly from cast-iron parts made in England. The group then returned to the Hamilton Hotel for a meal. Afterward they traveled back to St. George’s for an evening at the W.C.J. and Mary Hyland’s. Hyland was a “fellow Christian and eminent citizen of St.