December 12 Wednesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Edmund Clarence Stedman.
“It is most kind of President Dodge, but I am most likely to stay at home, for I am dead, dead, dead tired of talking & feeding. I have crept out of all my engagements except one tonight & one in the middle of January…” [MTP].
December 11 Tuesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Augustus T. Gurlitz, N.Y. Attorney for Kipling at this time.
As city editor of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise in late 1862, Sam Clemens rehearsed a comic persona of a sometimes bumbling, sometimes wise-cracking reporter. While uncovering the facts to report the truth, this wise-cracking reporter also prospected the town to discover where its jokes lay. By elaborating his initially unnamed comic newspaper persona, Clemens created his earliest version of Mark Twain, what might be called Washoe Mark Twain.
December 10 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Bad head-cold—from exposure at Motts. Woke up with it at 3 a.m. Was treated by Helmer (osteopath) at 3 this afternoon. Cold all gone before 11 to-night. No physician could do that wonderful thing” [NB 43 TS 31]. Note: Motts also mentioned for Dec. 18 dinner; NB entry.
Ella T. Smith wrote to Sam about this day, her letter not extant but referred to in his reply of Jan. 1, 1901 [MTP].
December 9 Sunday – [date in PDF box]
December 8 Saturday – L.J. Bridgman’s article, “To Mark Twain,” ran in Harper’s Weekly. Tenney: “Source: Listed in The Twainian, II (March, 1940), 3 as ‘poem illustrated by author’; a search of this issue was unsuccessful, and the citation appears to be incorrect” [32]
December 7 Friday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam replied to Christian B. Tauchnitz.
Indeed I will do you that “great favor” with very great pleasure, and shall hold those books in high regard as a remembrancer of the pleasant relations which have subsisted unbroken between us this long stretch of years [MTP: TS Curt Otto, Verlag Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1912, p.126]. Note:Tauchnitz’ incoming not extant. See entries in Vol. I & II.
December 6 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “St. Nicholas Society, Dinner Delmonico’s.(?)7 p.m.” [NB 43 TS 30].
December 5 Wednesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister. After some delay caused by registering the letter, Sam got MacAlister’s letter on Dec. 4, referred to in a cable, and then cabled his approval.