December 29 or 30 Thursday – Sam wrote a “Religious conundrum suggested by my present disease” to Twichell: “Question: If a Congress of Presbyterians is a PRESBYtery, what is a Congress of dissenters? Answer: A Dysentery” [MTL 6: 606].
December 28 Tuesday – Fidelia Bridges sent a receipt for $220 paid for watercolors [MTP].
December 26 Sunday – John W. Hart wrote from State Prison (“Sarcophogas 14 State Catacomb”) to wish Sam “A most obesely jocund Christmas.” Hart must have swallowed a dictionary, as his prose is a felony [MTP]. Note: Clemens wrote on the env. “From John W. Hart, who made the ship in prison”; a model ship was sent to Clemens.
December 25 Saturday – Christmas – Sam wrote a delightful letter he signed “Santa Claus” to Susy Clemens.
“I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother & the nurses, for I am a foreigner & cannot read English well” [MTL 6: 604].
December 24 Friday – In New York, Bret Harte wrote to Sam, asking a favor—to use his influence with Elisha Bliss to gain an additional $1,000 advance on his book, Gabriel Conroy. Harte reminded Sam of a day when their roles had been reversed, but believed that good times for him were coming.
December 23 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam: “Andy Hammond (West Point cadet) is coming home Christmas bringing some fellows with him. I have invited him and them to dinner Monday. I don’t know yet that they will come, but if they do I want you to come over—you and Charley Warner—and dine with us also. It will be such a treat to the boys if you can” [MTP].
December 22 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for her gift of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sam had been “confined to the house & in the doctor’s clutches for about 3 weeks….” And that this was his first day out to shop and “selected some birds to send you for our Christmas” [MTL 6: 602].
December 21 Tuesday – Sam gave a reading at Twichell’s Asylum Hill Church, Hartford. The Hartford Courant of Thursday, Dec. 16, 1875, p.1 in an article titled “Christ Church Choir and Mark Twain” reported that Clemens had agreed to give some readings for benevolence on the following Tuesday [MTPO]. (Sam’s letter of Dec. 22 puts this in dispute, so the reading is conjectural.)
December 20 Monday – Twichell noted in his journal: “M.T. being sick with …dysentery” [Yale, copy at MTP].
December 16 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Moncure Conway, who had written advising that he’d be able to visit Hartford on Dec. 28-29. Conway had been visiting the Howellses in Cambridge. Sam replied: “Good! Give us both days—can’t you do that?” [MTL 6: 599]. Conway came and stayed four days, leaving on Dec. 31 [MTL 6: 600n2].