December 26 Saturday – In the evening, the Joe and Harmony Twichell, George Henry Warner (1833-1919), John Hooker, and Olivia Lewis Langdon came to the Clemens home and celebrated the holiday [MTL 6: 332].
December 25 Friday – Christmas – Annie Moffett arrived in the morning for a visit. She stayed several months. Susy said several times, “Santa Claus was good to Susy” [MTL 6: 332].
Sam gave Livy a 4-volume set of The Dialogues of Plato for a Christmas gift [MTL 6: 481n2].
December 24 Thursday – Sam was still in New York. He called on the Hawaiian King David Kalakaua, who had arrived Dec. 23 for sightseeing. Sam first met him in the islands in April 1866. Later in the day the Clemens party took the train to Hartford for Christmas celebrations [MTL 6: 331].
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.