December 21 Monday – The Boston Daily Globe, p.17 ran this interesting article on Orion Clemens:
MARK TWAIN’S BROTHER
Would be a Good Character for One of the Humorist’s Books.
Mark Twain has a brother living in Keokuk, Ia., who is absent-minded enough for Mark to “put in a book.”
December 20 Sunday – Albert B. Joy sent Sam a printed invitation requesting a visit “on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Fridays in the afternoon / The Studio, Beaumont Road / beside the West Kensington station, North End Road” [MTP].
December 19 Saturday – Sam may have stayed overnight in Dresden or returned late Dec. 18.
“Playing Courier” first ran as “The Tramp Abroad Again: II. Playing Courier” in The Illustrated London News on this day and also Dec. 26 [Budd, Collected 1000].
Dresden (/ˈdrɛzdən/, German: [ˈdʁeːsdn̩] ⓘ; Upper Saxon: Dräsdn; Upper Sorbian: Drježdźany, pronounced [ˈdʁʲɛʒdʒanɨ]) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and it is the second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth largest by area (after Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne), and the third most populous city in the area of former East Germany, after Berlin and Leipzig. Dresden's urban area comprises the towns of Freital, Pirna, Radebeul, Meissen, Coswig, Radeberg and Heidenau and has around 790,000 inhabitants.
December 18 Friday – Sam left Berlin with William Phelps and traveled 125 miles south to Dresden
N.Y.Times article Dec 20 p.5, dateline Berlin, Dec 19:
December 16 Wednesday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam about Thomas M. Williams’ desire to undertake sales of LAL:
…the work of his life and he wants to make an agreement that will extend over the next eight or ten years…he thinks there is a fortune for himself and for is in the ‘Library,’ and …he will make the sale of ‘L.A.L.’ the work of his life” [MTLTP 291n1]. See also Sam’s Jan. 25, 1892 to Williams.
December 15 Tuesday – Lucy R. Buck wrote from Front Royal, Va. to Sam with reaction to “Mental Telegraphy” [MTP].
December 14 Monday – Frank A. Burelle for Bureau of Press Clippings responded to Sam’s order that a quote per month would be less than by the article and he would send it [MTP].
Edward Bush wrote to Sam Pennsylvania State College with reaction to “Mental Telegraphy” [MTP].
Harry E. Pratt, Chicago attorney sent his reaction to “Mental Telegraphy” with clipping from the Chicago Inter Ocean [MTP].
December 12 Saturday – Speaker in, “American Professional Humor,” p.705-6 printed a general discussion, ranking Twain with the lower practitioners [Tenney, supplement #3, American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p.183].
US Census per Robert P. Porter sent more census forms and flyer from Dept. of Interior [MTP].
Charles H. Payne wrote from N.Y. to Sam with reaction to “Mental Telegraphy” [MTP].
December 11 Friday – In Berlin Sam wrote to Rudolf Lindau of the Foreign Office, thanking him for a dinner which was “too delicious & too exquisite in every way for sinful human beings.” The date of the dinner is not specified, though it was social protocol usually observed by the Clemenses to send a thank you note within a day or two of such events. Since the dinner was in Berlin, a good estimate would be Dec. 9 or 10. Sam had been preparing a corn cob pipe for Lindau’s nephew by soaking it in whiskey.