October 26 Thursday – Sam spent the day traveling back to Hartford [MTL 4: 482n18].

October 25 Wednesday – Sam lectured in Odd Fellows Hall, Norristown, Penn. – “Artemus Ward.” That morning Sam met Susan Dickinson, sister of the famous suffrage lecturer Anna E. Dickinson, who wrote to her sister:

October 24 Tuesday – Sam lectured in Institute Hall, Wilmington, Delaware – “Artemus Ward. ”

In Washington, D.C. at the Arlington Hotel, Sam wrote to James Redpath:

(The only hotel in this town) {WILLARD’S—O, my!—seventh-rate hash-house.}

October 23 Monday – Sam gave the “Artemus Ward” lecture in Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C. [One version of this speech is found in Mark Twain Speaking, 41-7]. The lecture attracted a record crowd for Lincoln Hall, some 2,000, with 150 crowded on stage. The reviews were mixed, and Sam found it difficult to lecture about a dead humorist, or to tell Ward’s jokes and make them funny [MTL 4: 480n3].

October 22 Sunday – W.L. Denning did work at the Hartford rental house; also provided feather bed, 2 feather pillows, and misc. See Nov. 17 entry for payment [MTP].

October 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Wilkes-Barre, Penn. to Elisha Bliss. The typesetters had lost part of Ch. 18 of Roughing It, which described crossing the alkali desert. Sam could not focus to rewrite it and suggested perhaps they might have to omit the whole chapter [MTL 4: 477].

October 18 Wednesday – Sam lectured (“Uncommonplace Characters”) in Music Hall, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  Sam enlisted the help of “an old Californian friend” (unidentified) to cancel lectures in Easton, Penn., and Reading, Penn. for Oct. 19 and 20. The Easton Free Press had called the lectures in Bethlehem and Allentown a “failure,” so Sam was:

October 17 Tuesday – Sam lectured in Allentown, Penn. He wrote from Allentown to Livy:

      Livy darling, this lecture will never do. I hate it & won’t keep it. I can’t even handle these chuckle-headed Dutch with it.

      Have blocked out a lecture on Artemus Ward, & shall write it next Saturday & deliver it next Monday in Washington [MTL 4: 474-5].

October 16 Monday to February 27 – 1872 Lecture Tour:

Sam returned to the lecture circuit under the management of James Redpath and the Boston Lyceum Bureau. There were at least 77 engagements using three different speeches.

October 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Livy. Sam wrote of the town, “an old Dutch settlement, & I hear that tongue here as often as ours.” He was impressed by a cemetery with acres of identical graves with tombstones “the size of a boy’s slate.” Sam had registered with an assumed name at the hotel to guarantee his privacy, even though it meant bypassing a reception and “sumptuous rooms provided” [MTL 4: 470-1].