December 23 Wednesday – At the 100th performance of the Gilded Age play, Park Theatre, New York City, Sam gave a curtain speech, as advertised [published in Mark Twain Speaking, p.92-3. also see the New York Times reprint from Dec. 24, and MTL 6: 329].
December 22 Tuesday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Ponkapog, Mass.
December 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells, who’d written on Dec. 19 that Sam’s “No.
December 19 Saturday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote Sam:
“Mrs. Howells…is saying that I ought not to go to New Orleans without her. I suppose it will end by our looking at N.O. on the map; but I don’t give it up yet, and don’t you. We will keep this project alive if [it] takes all winter” [MTHL 1: 56].
December 18 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. After complimenting Aldrich on “Cloth of Gold,” a book of poetry, Sam talked of ice-skating:
“I’ve been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs. Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun in skating if you could do it with somebody else’s muscles” [MTL 6: 321].
December 17 Thursday – Sam had brought back from Howells an inscribed copy of A Foregone Conclusion as a gift for Joseph Twichell. Sam presented the book to Joe. In the evening Sam and Joe went to a benefit concert at the Roberts Opera House for the Hartford Young Men’s Institute. They listened to the Yale Glee Club.
December 16 Wednesday – John M. Hay wrote after reading the first installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi” in the Atlantic.
December 15 Tuesday – Sam traveled to Boston to attend the dinner at the Parker House, hosted by the Atlantic Monthly for its contributors. About 30 contributors were present. Howells was toastmaster. Guests included: Henry Oscar Houghton, Melancthon M. Hurd, Horace E. Scudder, and George Harrison Mifflin (all business associates of Houghton).
December 14 Monday – In Hartford Sam typed a letter to Howells about Livy catching him in the use of profanity mentioned in Howell’s letter of Dec. 11.
“…nothing but almost inspired lying got me out of this scrape with my scalp. Does your wife give you rats, like this, when you go a little one-sided?” [MTL 6: 316].
December 13 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells suggesting Howells employ some ruse with his wife in order to: