December 18 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. After complimenting Aldrich on “Cloth of Gold,” a book of poetry, Sam talked of ice-skating:
“I’ve been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs. Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun in skating if you could do it with somebody else’s muscles” [MTL 6: 321].
December 19 Saturday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote Sam:
“Mrs. Howells…is saying that I ought not to go to New Orleans without her. I suppose it will end by our looking at N.O. on the map; but I don’t give it up yet, and don’t you. We will keep this project alive if [it] takes all winter” [MTHL 1: 56].
December 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells, who’d written on Dec. 19 that Sam’s “No.
December 22 Tuesday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Ponkapog, Mass.
December 23 Wednesday – At the 100th performance of the Gilded Age play, Park Theatre, New York City, Sam gave a curtain speech, as advertised [published in Mark Twain Speaking, p.92-3. also see the New York Times reprint from Dec. 24, and MTL 6: 329].
December 24 Thursday – Sam was still in New York. He called on the Hawaiian King David Kalakaua, who had arrived Dec. 23 for sightseeing. Sam first met him in the islands in April 1866. Later in the day the Clemens party took the train to Hartford for Christmas celebrations [MTL 6: 331].
December 25 Friday – Christmas – Annie Moffett arrived in the morning for a visit. She stayed several months. Susy said several times, “Santa Claus was good to Susy” [MTL 6: 332].
Sam gave Livy a 4-volume set of The Dialogues of Plato for a Christmas gift [MTL 6: 481n2].
December 26 Saturday – In the evening, the Joe and Harmony Twichell, George Henry Warner (1833-1919), John Hooker, and Olivia Lewis Langdon came to the Clemens home and celebrated the holiday [MTL 6: 332].
December 27 Sunday – In Hartford, Livy wrote to Mollie Clemens and Sam added a PS that he’d just received Orion’s letter, “…in which he says he is ordering the Atlantic. Has he already ordered it?” Livy enclosed a picture of herself [MTL 6: 332].
December 28 Monday – Sam typed a note from Hartford to James Redpath.
NO, THANKS! MY DISLIKE OF THE PLATFORM HAS GROWN TO SUCH PROPORTIONS THAT I BELIEVE I AM AT LAST ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBILITIES WHICH NASBY DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF – – – A REFORMED LECTURER.
December 29 Tuesday – Sam telegraphed from Hartford to Hawaiian King David Kalakaua, sending his regrets that he could not be at the Gilded Age play that evening, when the King would attend. He invited Kalakaua to lunch with him at Hartford on Thursday, but the King said prior engagement commitments prevented him from accepting [MTL 6: 334].
December 31 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, fronting the letter with a self-portrait in black ink [see MTL 6: 336]. Sam and Aldrich went back and forth with jokes and photographs (Sam later claimed he “sent him 45 envelops of all possible sizes, containing an aggregate of near seventy differing pictures of myself, house & family.”
Aldrich replied:
Hartford Life – Pirates of Sellers Play – Queer Letters – Beecher Trial –Tom Sawyer - Sketches New & Old – Gondour – De Quille’s Bonanza Book – Dreaming of a River Trip - Drunk Wet Nurse – Baseball, Umbrellas & a Boy’s Body – Chasing Down Gill - Bateman’s Point & Bowling History – Moncure Conway
1875 – Actor John Drew (1853-1927) remembered that Sam first saw him in the 1875 play, The Taming of the Shrew in New York City [Gribben 631]. The exact date has proven elusive.
January – The first of seven installments of “Old Times on the Mississippi” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Note: this was out in mid-December, 1874 as John Hay’s Dec. 16 to Clemens attests.
January 1 Friday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Ponkapog, Mass. after receiving some 70 pictures of Clemens in 45 envelopes:
January 5 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to the H.O. Houghton & Co., owners of the Atlantic Monthly, sending a check for $4 and asking that 1875 editions be sent to his brother, Orion [MTL 6: 338]. Note: Though Sam often scolded Orion for incompetence, he was usually generous and expressed hope for his success.
January 6 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford, again to the H.O. Houghton & Co., thanking them for the present of his subscription to the Atlantic Monthly. He added a PS:
“I appreciate the voluntary compliment of being paid more than better men, but then I am trying to deserve it. This is rare among writers.”
January 7 Thursday – James T. Fields, past editor of the Atlantic who remained active as a writer and lecturer, visited Sam in Hartford. Later that day Sam sent Fields the “original rough draft” of a poem, “Those Annual Bills,” together with a short note of thanks.
January 8 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Louise Chandler Moulton about her article on his “pet detestation,” Rabelais.
“Did you know, I have often had more than half a mind to go over & dig up Rabelais & throw his bones” away? [MTL 6: 343].
James T. Fields wrote to Clemens after his visit of Jan. 7.
January 10 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam, sending proof number two of his pilot series and writing mostly about the hoped-for New Orleans trip, and the possibilities and improbabilities of taking the wives along. Howells included the line:
January 11 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John T. Raymond after hosting him and Kate Field for lunch (for a description of the lunch by Annie Moffett, See MTL 6: 347n4)
January 12 Tuesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam a two-line note that the last installment of “Old Times” was “extraordinarily good” [MTHL 1: 59].
January 13 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James R. Osgood, answering his invitation to a Jan. 20 dinner at the Nautilus Club in Boston. Sam answered:
“Indeed I wish I could go, but the madam has made me promise that I wouldn’t absent myself from home until this epidemical & dreadful membranous croup has quitted the atmosphere hereabouts” [MTL 6: 349].
January 15 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells grateful that he’d liked the third installment of “Old Times,” (his approval was in a Jan. 12 letter). Sam also sent the fourth installment, which ended with what Sam called a “snapper”—a sleepwalking pilot was observed skillfully directing the craft by two other pilots. One pilot remarked: “I never saw anything so gaudy before.
January 16 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John L. Toole, English comedian he met in London in 1872. Through Sam, Toole was welcomed at the Lotos Club dinner on Aug. 6, 1874. Now Toole was appearing at the Roberts Opera House in Hartford. Sam regretted being unable to attend and invited Toole to dine with the family at 5 PM the next evening.