December 30 Saturday – Sam lectured in Paris, Illinois – Topic was probably “Artemus Ward.”
Elmira, Hartford and England: Day By Day
December 30 Tuesday – Sam wrote from the Langham in London to George Fitzgibbon. Sam’s required business of gaining copyright in England was completed. There was nothing keeping Sam in England. He wrote that he would lecture:
December 31 Sunday – In a “warm drizzling rain,” Sam went to church in Paris, Illinois, and wrote of the experience in a long letter to Livy.
“It was the West & boyhood brought back again, vividly. It was as if twenty-five years had fallen away from me like a garment & I was a lad of eleven again in my Missouri village church of that ancient time” [MTL 4: 527].
December 31 Wednesday – Sam accepted Brooks’ invitation and spent New Year’s Eve until 2:30 AM with the Brookses, the Burrands, the Hardmans, the Jerrolds, the Yateses, and Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), among others. Note: Sir William Hardman (1828-1890).
From Shirley Brooks’ diary:
December 4 Monday – Sam gave the “Artemus Ward” lecture in Linden Hall, Geneva, New York. He wrote from Geneva to Livy, telling of being approached by “two-little-girl friends” of his “early boyhood,” Mary E. Bacon and Mildred Catherine (Kitty) Shoot.
December 4 Thursday – Sam gave his “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Queen’s Concert Rooms, London [MTPO].
December 5 Tuesday – Sam gave the “Artemus Ward” lecture in Academy of Music, Auburn, New York [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Auburn to Livy. He met again with Dr. Merrill in the morning:
Old Darling, I thank you very very much for so loving me & so missing & me & remembering my birthday & wishing for me there—& I do reciprocate—I love you with all my heart & long to be with you again.
December 5 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother and family in Fredonia, asking for any two of them to visit during the winter and for “a couple of you here for Christmas.” Livy couldn’t handle any more than two guests at once [MTL 5: 240].
December 5 Friday – Sam gave his “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Queen’s Concert Rooms, London [MTPO]. These lectures were given to full and enthusiastic houses and were consistently successful. Stoddard wrote that after his lectures Sam “always felt amiable, and met the people who came to shake hands…and cheerfully gave autographs.” Stoddard observed that “Lecturing excited him and got him started and he would talk for hours.” Stoddard also saw a melancholy side of Sam
December 6 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed the American Publishing Company:
“Why have you not answered my telegram I particularly want proofs of the California part of the book expressed immediately to Reeds Hotel Erie Pa shall use some extracts in Public reading in place of a lecture if you have shipped none already maybe you better send duplicates to Toledo also answer. / Mark Twain”[MTPO].
December 6 Friday – Sam’s letter, “Concerning an Insupportable Nuisance” dated Dec. 5, ran in the Hartford Evening Post [Camfield, bibliog.].
December 6 Saturday – In the afternoon, Sam gave his “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Queen’s Concert Rooms, London [MTPO]. Afterward, Sam wrote a short note to Livy.
“There was a mighty fine house there this afternoon, & I went through all right, but I am getting unspeakably sick of the Sandwich Islands as a topic to lecture on. I shall get tired of the new one in a week I expect” [MTL 5: 494].
December 7 Thursday – Sam gave the “Roughing It” lecture in Sprague’s Hall, Warsaw, New York. One version of this speech is published in Mark Twain Speaking, pp. 48-63. Sam experienced mixed results with the Artemus Ward lecture, and even faced charges of plagiarism for retelling some of Ward’s old jokes. He was ready to try a new lecture.
December 7 Saturday – Sam’s letter, “The Missouri Disaster” dated Dec. 5, ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.].
December 7 Sunday – Sam wrote another short note from London to Livy. He’d rehearsed his “Roughing It” lecture and thought he’d enjoy it. He asked if she got his telegram from Queenstown, and said that Bliss needed to “hurry up the book” if he was to copyright it in England [MTL 5: 495].
December 8 Friday – Sam lectured in Union Hall, Fredonia, New York – “Roughing It.” Sam telegraphed from Buffalo to Redpath & Fall. “Notify all hands that from this date I shall talk nothing but selections from my forth-coming book Roughing It, tried it last night suits me tip top” Sam sent the telegraph while traveling from Warsaw [MTL 4: 511].
December 8 Monday – Sam sent a short note to an unidentified member of the London Morayshire Club who had sent him tickets to a club dinner that evening.
December 9 Saturday – Sam lectured in Farrar Hall, Erie, Pennsylvania – “Artemus Ward.”
December 9 Tuesday – In the evening, Sam gave his “Roughing It on the Silver Frontier” lecture at the Queen’s Concert Rooms, London [MTPO]. Afterward, Sam wrote Livy that he’d “never enjoyed delivering a lecture” more than he had that night.
Sam, Livy and Langdon moved to the Langdon home in Elmira and Sam would walk to the Quarry Farm house, "a mile & a half up a mountain, where I write every day" on his book "Roughing It". In October of 1871, they moved to the Hooker House in Nook Farm, on the western side of Hartford, Connecticut. This was a period of a somewhat unsatisfactory lecture tour, three trips to England, the birth of his first daughter, known as Susie, and the building of his Hartford Home on Farmington.
February 1 Thursday – Sam lectured to a “jammed” house in Rand’s Hall, Troy, New York – “Roughing It.” George Routledge paid Sam a token amount ($185) for the right to publish Roughing It simultaneously in England [MTL 5: 73n3].
Sam left for Hartford.
February 1 Saturday – Sam telegraphed from Hartford to Whitelaw Reid, who was a member of the Lotos Club in N.Y. where Sam had agreed to speak. “Andrews and I will go to the club without first going to the hotel.” The dinner was in Reid’s honor. That evening, Sam gave a speech.
“I make it a rule of life never to miss any chances, especially on occasions like these, where the opportunity for converting the heathen is luxuriously promising” [MTL 5: 292].
February 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James Redpath. Apologetically, Sam expressed shame at breaking agreements with Redpath, and agreed to lecture in Boston, “Roughing It” and “Sandwich Islands” on consecutive nights. To square things, Sam offered Redpath 15% of the gross, or half net, whatever he desired [MTL 6: 24].
February 10 Saturday – Sam had returned to Hartford and purchased a pair of “patent Congress Gaiters” from Caspar Kreuzer, a boot maker there [MTL 5: 41].
February 10 Monday – Sam was listed among the arrivals at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. He may have viewed dress rehearsals of Augustin Daly’s play of Roughing It, which ran from Feb. 18 to Mar. 15 [The Twainian, July-Aug 1946 p2].
In the evening, Sam gave his revised “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Steinway Hall, New York City [Schmidt].
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