Pilgrims and Vandals: Day By Day

March 21 Sunday – Sam returned to Elmira, where he continued proofing Innocents Abroad with Livy.

March 22 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-seven” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 277-81].

March 24 Wednesday – The Sharon Times reported that Sam was “about to issue a work of some six hundred pages, ‘The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim’s Progress’.” The notice confirms that by this time Sam had decided on the new title for the book [MTL 3: 175].

March 25 Thursday – Sam wrote in Livy’s copy of Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,

Midnight March 25, 1869—I wish “Even Me” to be sung at my funeral.

March 26? Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to his mother and family, more on desire to help Orion, and Sam’s indecision as to his plans—possibly a trip to California in May. Should he lecture on the circuit next season? Join Nasby on the Toledo Blade? [MTL 3: 177-8]. Sam hadn’t decided what to do.

March 29 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-eight” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 281-7].

March 3 Tuesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN ON HIS TRAVELS, dated Feb. 1, ran in the Alta California . Subtitles: The White Fawn; Hartford; The Charter Oak; and:

March 3 Wednesday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture, which had been postponed from Feb. 27, in Arcade Hall, Lockport, New York [MTPO].
Reverend Joseph L. Bennett (b. 1823 or 1824) called on Clemens in the evening. Referred to in Sam’s Mar. 4 to Livy:

March 30 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss, advising that he’d sent the proofs of Innocents Abroad. Sam suggested several titles for the book [MTL 3: 178-9]. He finished the letter of Mar. 9 to Susan L. Crane, filling the letter with personal goings-on in the Langdon clan [MTL 3: 180-4].

March 31 Wednesday – Sam paid $23 to his tailor, Cyrus Fay. Perhaps Sam figured he would lecture after all, and would need new clothes. Sam and Livy, in Elmira, began a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks that he finished on Apr. 1. The March 31 portion:

Dear Mother—

March 4 Wednesday – Sam’s satiric poem, “Rock Him to Sleep” ran in the Cincinnati Evening Chronicle [Camfield, bibliog.]. The work ridiculed Alexander M.W. Ball, one of the claimants of authorship for the popular poem, “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother” [Gribben 21].

March 4 Thursday – Sam wrote from Lockport to Livy:
“My last lecture (for some time, at least,) is delivered, & I am so glad that I must fly to you (on paper,) & make you help me hurrah. The long siege is over, & I may rest at last. I feel like a captive set free” [MTL 3: 134].
Sam was not through lecturing, but he would have a twelve-day rest. He left Lockport for Hartford, traveling all night and part of the next day.

March 5 Friday – Sam arrived in Hartford, where he wrote Livy. Sam called on the Courant office during the day, but Gov. Hawley had traveled to Washington, D.C. to see Grant’s inauguration. Hawley was to arrive back in Hartford this evening and call on Sam at his hotel. Sam then visited the Twichells and left at half past eleven, refusing their kind offer to stay with them while in Hartford. Sam stayed instead at the Allyn House Hotel [MTL 3: 136-8, 143].

March 6 Saturday – Sam wrote twice from Hartford to Livy. He’d seen “a dozen or two” of the illustrations for Innocents Abroad, and wrote that they were “very artistically engraved.” He praised the talents of the engraver, Truman “True” Williams.

March 7 Saturday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON,  NUMBER IX dated Feb. 1868 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Washington Rascality,” “The Delegation,” “Postmaster,” “Sandwich Islands Reciprocity,” “Miscellaneous” (McGrorty,) “Hay,” “Wood,” “Rough,” and

Impeachment.

March 7 Sunday – Sam wrote a “long newspaper article…till 11 o’clock [PM],” probably “The White House Funeral,” a scathing mock report of President Andrew Johnson’s final cabinet meeting before Grant’s inauguration of Mar. 4. The article was in proofs and not published, most likely due to reports of Johnson’s severe illness [MTL 3: 148, 151n2]. Note: In those days, the press still had some class.

March 8 Sunday – On or about this date Sam received a negative reply from the editors of the Alta to his request to reuse the Holy Land letters in his new book [MTL 2: 200].

Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-five” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 266-72].

March 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy about writing the article the night before and being unable to sleep until daylight. He rose at 9:30 AM and wrote letters. “I’ll call on the Hookers or die. Saw Mr. Hooker a moment after I left Mrs. B. He was the very man I wanted to see. Because I like him, in spite of prejudice and everything else” [MTL 3: 149]. 

Sam also wrote to John Russell Young, editor of the New York Tribune, sending the “Funeral” article [MTL 3: 150].

March 8–10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to his mother and family. Paine paraphrases this letter, evidently not extant, about Sam’s decision to travel to San Francisco and talk to “those Alta thieves face to face” [MTB 361]. He knew Colonel John McComb and Frederick MacCrellish well.

March 9 Monday – The Washington Evening Star announced:

“Mark Twain”—Clemens—has left Washington for California to make arrangements for the publication of his work [Muller 137].

March 9 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy about his love for her, the up-coming trip to California, and the wisdom of “sowing oats” early in life, etc. Sam had thought it over and spoken with Rev.

May 1 Friday – Sam returned to Virginia City, where he began a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks:

“My Dear Mother—I cannot go a-Maying today, because it is snowing so hard—& so I have been writing some newspaper letters…”

Sam left the letter unfinished until he returned to San Francisco [MTL 2: 211]. Sam spent a couple of days “to shake hands and swap yarns with his old friends” [MTL 2: 213].

May 10 Monday – Sam wrote from Bliss’ office in Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

May 11 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother about leaving Elmira, proofs of his book, money he sent and what she might need. He also wrote of his desire for a small wedding [MTL 3: 218-9]. Note: It was 2 a.m. and the letter seems abrupt.

May 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Mary Mason Fairbanks, including a photograph he had forgotten to include in his letter of May 5.

He also wrote to Frank Fuller about his success in lecturing, his plans to go east the first of July and the news that his book would be issued from the press early in December [MTL 2: 216].