New York and Washington DC 1867-68 - Day By Day

February 11 Tuesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON, dated Dec. 23, 1867, ran in the San Francisco California Alta. Subtitles: The President and Vice President; The President’s last; The Big Trees; Senatorial; Miscellaneous [Schmidt].

February 13 Thursday – Sam’s article, “The Facts Concerning the Recent Important Resignation” dated Feb. 9, ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.].

February 14 Friday – Sam gave the toast “Woman” to the Press Club Dinner. He revised it to overcome the objections of Mary Mason Fairbanks [MTL 2: 191n1]. Fatout lists the toast as Feb. 18, as does Sam in his letter of Feb. 20 to Mrs. Fairbanks [MT Speaking 649].

February 16 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty-nine” dated Sept. 1867 at “Nazareth” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 248-54].

February 18 Tuesday –MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON dated Jan. 11 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Stewart’s Speech,” and:

The Political Stink-Pots Opened.

February – Sam’s humorous article, “General Washington’s Negro Body-Servant,” first ran in the Galaxy Magazine for Feb. 1868 [Emerson 63].

February, early – Sam moved again, to 76 Indiana Avenue, Washington, D.C.

February 19 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Anson Burlingame.

“Don’t neglect or refuse to keep a gorgeous secretaryship or a high interpretership for me in your great embassy—for pilgrim as I am, I have not entirely exhausted Europe yet, & may want to get converse with some of those Kings again, by & bye.”

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

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].

January 12 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty-four” dated Sept. 1867 at “Williamsburgh, Palestine” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 219-25].

January 13 Monday – Sam’s article “Woman—An Opinion” ran in the Washington Evening Star [Camfield, bibliog.]. The Twainian, Feb. 1940, asserts this is the first printing of the speech.

January 14 Tuesday – Sam wrote at 2 AM from Washington, D.C. to his mother and family, enclosing a Washington Evening Star newspaper copy of his speech, “Woman,” which included editorial inserts for laughter, applause, great laughter, etc. [MTL 2: 155-7].