The Buffalo Express: Day By Day

January 12 Wednesday – Clemens lectured (“Savages”) in Rondout, New York.

January 12 Thursday – Sam wrote at 1 AM from Cleveland, Ohio to Livy about the Fairbanks-Gaylord wedding. “About four to six or seven hundred people have asked after your & the cub’s health & the latter’s progress” [MTL 4: 301].

January 13 Thursday – Sam wrote from Cambridge, New York to Livy about quitting smoking—did she really want him to?

“I shall treat smoking just exactly as I would treat the forefinger of my left hand: If you asked me in all seriousness to cut that finger off…I give you my word I would cut it off” [MTL 4: 21]. Note: Presented in this way, how could Livy ask Sam to quit smoking?

In the evening, Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Hubbard Hall, Cambridge, New York [MTPO].

January 13 Friday – Sam visited the new Fairbanks’ home, which had been built after the two fires in 1869. The new place was called “Fair Banks” [MTL 4: 302n5]. He left Cleveland to return home to Buffalo.

January 14 Friday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Mechanic’s Hall, Utica, New York [MTPO].

Sam wrote from Troy, New York to Livy. Neither poor weather nor a fire in the lecture hall stopped Sam from his lecture. He was upset that the Troy Daily Times had published his Cambridge lecture of the night before. At 7 a fire broke out in the lecture hall.

January 14 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Henry Webb.

“I dissent. I made up my mind solidly day before yesterday that I would draw out of the Galaxy with the April No. & write no more for any periodical—except, at long intervals a screed that I happened to dearly want to write” [MTL 4: 302].

January 15 Saturday – Sam wrote after midnight from the Baggs Hotel in Utica, New York to Livy [Powers, MT A Life 280].

“We had a noble house to-night (Oh, it is bitter, bitter cold & blustery!)—the largest of the season, they believe, though they cannot tell till they count the tickets to-morrow.”

Sam also wrote his sister, Pamela. He’d sent money for her and Annie to come for his wedding, plus support money for his mother, whom he did not want making the trip during the winter.

January 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to the Editor of Every Saturday, Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), setting him straight that the poem “Three Aces” run in the Express Dec. 3, 1870 over the byline “Carl Byng was not Twain’s. Aldrich complained in the Jan.

January 17 Monday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Baldwinsville, New York [MTPO].

January 18 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Ogdensburg, NY [MTPO]. He left Buffalo at 4 PM

January 18 Wednesday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Yours of the 15th just at hand / We will get out the book just as soon as possible. The stereotypers have delayed us.” He included more publishing details for A Burlesque Autobiography [MTP].

January – In the Galaxy for this month – MARK TWAIN’S MEMORANDA – Included:

“The Portrait”
“The Facts in the Case of George Fisher, Deceased”
“A ‘Forty-niner’ ”
“Doggerel”
“Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again, Letter VII”
“Mean People”
“A Sad, Sad Business”
“Concerning a Rumor”
“Agassiz” [Schmidt].

January 19 Wednesday – Sam lectured at the Normal School Chapel, Fredonia, New York [MTPO]. The Fredonia Censor reported on Jan. 26 of this lecture:

January 19 Thursday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “I send you by this mail 8 or 10 pages of print. / I think that you will like the page” [MTP]

January 2 Monday – Laura E. Lyman (Kate Hunnibee) wrote on NY Tribune notepaper [MTP].. She wrote the “Home Interest” column. Basically a fan letter in praise of IA.

January 20 Thursday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Hornell Library, Hornellsville, New York. Sam wrote before the lecture from Hornellsville to Livy.

January 21 Friday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Institute Hall, Jamestown, New York, and immediately made the trip to Elmira to prepare for his wedding [MTL 4: 33n1]. Note: Reigstad writes that the tour “ended with a whimper. / He admitted to being tired for his last lecture stop, and the Jamestown Journal reports were unflattering” [93]. During the three-month lecture tour, Clemens sent over 20 stories to the Buffalo Express [94].

January 21 Saturday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Why do you not return the proof sent to you some days since? I fear that it may not have reached you” [MTP].

C.F. Sterling wrote from Birmingham, Conn. to Sam.

January 22 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss. He had begun a book about Noah’s Ark, which was never completed. He also wrote that he was “prosecuting Webb in the N.Y. courts” to regain the copyright of the Jumping Frog book, which Charles Webb had entered in his own name. He intended then to break up the plates “& prepare a new vol.

January 22 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo, again to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, asking that he not print the paragraph sent on Jan. 15. Aldrich replied on Jan. 25 that it was too late; that the note and his apology had been printed on 42,000 copies of the next edition [MTL 4: 305].

January 24 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss.

January 25 Wednesday – Livy and Sam (mostly Livy) wrote to Alice Hooker Day from a Buffalo hospital where Livy took Langdon for a wet nurse. Sam added an apology for an “absurdly curt dispatch” he had sent, probably canceling Isabella Beecher Hooker’s visit [MTL 4: 313-4]. Haughty Isabella was not one of Sam’s favorites.

January 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Jim Gillis, evidently answering Jim’s letter about the good ol’ days at Angels Camp.

January 26 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

“Remembering the hatchet, I am your own moral son, which cannot tell a lie, when a body is looking straight at him…make the bride & groom be sure to stop…” —that is, Alice and William Gaylord on their honeymoon [MTL 4: 314].

January 27 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Thomas Bailey Aldrich concerning the Bret Harte plagiarism claim and Sam’s subsequent denial that the Carl Byng verses were his.

“No, indeed, don’t take back the apology! Hang it, I don’t want to abuse a man’s civility merely because he gives me the chance.”

Sam also gave credit to Harte for changing him: