Pilgrims and Vandals: Day By Day

February 2 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty-seven” dated Sept. 1867 at “Nazareth” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 236-42].

February 2 Tuesday – Sam left Cleveland for Elmira and Livy. He’d received some interest from George A. Benedict, who was ill, in the sale of part interest in the Cleveland Herald for $25,000.

February 20 Thursday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Mary Mason Fairbanks. In part:

Your most welcome letter is by me, & I must hurry & write while your barometer is at “fair” for it isn’t within the range of possibility that I can refrain long from doing something that will fetch it down to “stormy” again.

February 21 Friday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to his mother, Jane Clemens and family.

“I was at 224 first—Stewart is there yet—I have moved five times since—shall move again, shortly. Shabby furniture & shabby food—that is Washn —I mean to keep moving….I couldn’t accept the Postoffice—the book contract was in the way—I could not go behind that—& besides, I did not want the office” [MTL 2: 195-6].

February 22 Saturday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Mollie Clemens about his book contract and that he expected to go with Anson Burlingame on the Chinese Embassy trip, once he left for Europe [MTL 2: 198-9].

February 23 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-three” dated Sept. 1867 “At Large in Palestine” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 254-60].

February 23 Tuesday – Sam reached Trenton early in the day. That evening he gave his “Vandals” lecture in Trenton, New Jersey and then returned to New York, where he waited “all day” for a room at the St. Nicholas Hotel. That evening Sam and Jervis tried without success to visit Fidele (Mrs. Henry) Brooks. The Brooks were family friends of the Langdons. Sam probably wrote Livy a letter, which has been lost [MTL 3: 113n2].

February 24 Monday – The Washington Morning Chronicle said that the Feb. 22 audience, “including many of the most prominent persons of Georgetown and this city…was in almost continuous roars of laughter,” the amusing effect heightened by “his peculiarly slow and inimitable drawl” [Fatout, Circuit 86].

February 25 Thursday – Early in the morning, Sam took a train 125 miles north to Stuyvesant, New York, where he gave his “Vandals” lecture.

February 26 Friday – Sam wrote after midnight from Stuyvesant to Livy, and enclosed a photograph of himself taken at Gurney & Son on Fifth Avenue in New York. He had left New York City early in the day. In Stuyvesant, Sam was the guest of Rev. Elbert Nevius [MTL 3: 111-14]. Sam left Stuyvesant in the morning and traveled all day.

February 27 Thursday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER VII dated Jan. 30 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “More Westonism,” “Impeachment,” “Harry Worthington,” “Mormonism,” and:

Judge McCorkle.

February 27 Saturday –Sam traveled all night and arrived in Lockport, some 250 miles. He wrote from Lockport, New York to Livy. Sam wrote much more flippantly about Jervis than he had in the past. The two men were becoming closer friends, and Sam loved to tease Livy, or anyone whom he liked. Sam also wrote to Jane Clemens and family, and started a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks [MTL 3: 114]. Note: also Sam’s first meeting of John De La Fletcher Slee (1837-1901). See 119n4 in source.

February 28 Sunday – Sam wrote from Rochester, New York finishing the Feb. 27 letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks. He also wrote to Livy:

February 3 Monday – Sam’s article “Gossip at the National Capitol” dated Feb. 1 ran in the New York Herald [Camfield, bibliog.]. Note: Budd attributes this and two other Herald articles on Feb. 8 and Feb. 15, 1868 to Sam in “Did Mark Twain Write Impersonally for the New York Herald?” Duke University’s Library Notes, Nov. 1973 No. 43.

February 4 and 6 Thursday – Sam wrote from Washington to Elisha Bliss, asking for a thousand dollar advance on the new book, in order to cut down on his newspaper articles and focus on the book, which was to become Innocents Abroad. He had turned down the Postmaster of San Francisco job, and explained the loss of income to Bliss.

February 4 Thursday – Sam arrived in Elmira. Jervis Langdon gave his approval for Sam and Livy’s engagement.

February 5 Wednesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON, dated Jan. 11, 1867, ran in the San Francisco California Alta. Subtitles: Charles Dickens; Complimentary; Presidential Presents; Jump’s Pictures; Festivities, etc. [MTL 2: 623 1868s].

Jump’s Pictures.

February 5 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to his mother and family, informing them that he was:
“…duly & solemnly & irrevocably engaged to be married to Miss Olivia L. Langdon, aged 23 ½, only daughter of Jervis and Olivia Langdon of Elmira, New York. Amen.”
Sam told the family of his possible purchase of a part interest in the Cleveland Herald, that the marriage with Livy might take a “good while” as he was not yet “rich enough,” and of Livy setting:

February 8 Saturday – Sam worked for a short time during this year as a special correspondent for the Chicago Republican. His first LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated Jan. 31 from Washington ran and included: “CONGRESSIONAL POETRY,” “MR JUSTICE FIELD,” “KALAMAZOO,” “THE CAPITOL POLICE,” “COLORADO AT THE DOOR,” and “FASHIONS” (a report on the fashions at General Grant’s reception) [Schmidt].

February 9 Sunday – Sam wrote from Washington to Mary Mason Fairbanks, teasing her that he was “tapering off” of using slang. He also had been sick and recently moved to 76 Indiana Avenue in Washington.

“I am bound to wander out of the straight path & do outrageous things, occasionally, & I believe I have got a genuinely bad heart anyhow—but in the course of time I will get some of the badness out of it or break it”[MTL 2: 180-1].

January 1 Wednesday – In the morning, Sam again saw his future wife, Olivia Louise Langdon at 115 West Forty-fourth Street, the home of Thomas S. and Anna E. Berry, friends of the Langdons. Olivia was with close friend Alice Hooker (1847-1928). In 1906 Sam wrote,

“I had thirty-four calls on my list, and this was the first one. I continued it during thirteen hours, and put the other thirty-three off till next year” [MTL 2: 146n3].

January 1 Friday – Sam spent the day with Solon & Emily Severance, old Quaker City shipmates, making social calls in Cleveland, Ohio. While he waited for the carriage, Sam wrote Joseph Twichell:
“And I have delightful Christmas letters, this morning, from her [Livy’s] mother & father—full of love and trust. I seem to be shaking off the drowsiness of centuries & looking about me half bewildered at the light just bursting above the horizon of an unfamiliar world” [MTL 3: 1-2].

January 10 Friday – 2 AM – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Charles Webb, asking him to send three copies of the Jumping Frog.

January 10 Sunday – Sam wrote from Galesburg to Harriet Lewis, Livy’s cousin who was Sam and Livy’s ally, early on in 1868 pretending to be the object of Sam’s affections to hide their affair from the Langdons. Sam’s tongue in cheek letter about breaking Harriet’s heart was sublime and hilarious:

January 11 Saturday – Washington Morning Chronicle:

The subject of his remarks was the recent trip of a party of excursionists on the steamship Quaker City to Europe and points on the Mediterranean, and his descriptions were replete with sparkling wit, to which his slow, deliberate style of speaking gave a peculiar charm [Fatout, MT Speaking 648].