November 25 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells, responding to the editor’s “amendment” to his “pilot days” installment sent on Nov. 24 [MTHL 1: 43-4]. Sam, reading over the proofs, objected to the poor hyphenating done at the ends of lines. He also felt he shouldn’t appear in print too often. “…newspapers soon get to lying in wait for me to blackguard me.
November 27 Friday – Livy’s 29th birthday.
Phineas T. Barnum wrote from Bridgeport to advise he would send what begging letters he had laid aside, though he felt “some will be of no use to you probably” [MTP].
November 29 Sunday – Sam’s sketch, “Sociable Jimmy,” written from his letter home in 1872 was printed in the New York Times [MTL 5: 20n6; Fatout, MT Speaks 88]. An excerpt:
November 30 Monday – Sam’s 39th birthday. Livy presented Sam with a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Hanging of the Crane (1875), signing her name and the date and Sam’s name [Butterfield auction catalog, July 16, 1997, p. 25 item # 2680].
December – Sam inscribed the half of each title page on four volumes of The Dialogues of Plato:
“For Livy Clemens / 1874. /S. L. CI.I” [Gribben 549].
He also inscribed A Child’s Poems, by Lucy Catlin (1872) “Saml. L. Clemens, Hartford, Dec. 1874” [585].
December 1 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Miss Street, daughter of James Street, in 1861 agent for the Overland Telegraph Company in Salt Lake City. Street met Sam and Orion on their trip to Nevada. Sam also renewed the acquaintance in San Francisco, and Street is portrayed in Chapters 12 and 14 of Roughing It [MTL 6: 299]. Sam responded to a request, most likely for his autograph.
December 2 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells, sending a new photograph of himself [MTL 6: 300]. Note: see insert photo.
December 2? Wednesday – Sam sent a photograph (see insert) to Jahu Dewitt Miller [MTP].
December 3 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam that “The fotograf is a wonderful success, and Mrs. Howells and I are exultantly grateful. We’ve got it framed to match Warner’s, and it turns its eagle-eye away from me towards Boston, on my study mantel-piece” [MTHL 1: 46].
December 4 Friday – Estes & Lauriat of Boston receipted Sam for two copies of Summer Sketches, unidentified book, one of which was sent to Joe Twichell. The bill was dated Dec. 2 [Gribben 678]. Howells inscribed a copy of his novel, A Foregone Conclusion, to Livy with this date [Gribben 329].
December 5 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to an unidentified person, that “Cannibalism in the Cars” had never been published in America, and directed the person to Routledge editions [MTL 6: 305].
December 8 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, about work on the “pilot articles.”
“I could wind up with No. 4, but there are some things more, which I am powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person who would quit authorizing in a minute to go piloting, if the madam would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time” [MTL 6: 305-6].
December 9 Wednesday – In Hartford, using a typewriter he’d purchased in Boston with the help of Petroleum Nasby (David Locke), Sam typed from Hartford to Orion. The typewriter cost Sam $125 and could only print upper case letters.
December 10 Thursday – Bret Harte gave a lecture in Farwell Hall, Chicago, titled “American Humor.” Though briefly treating Mark Twain, Harte offered praise:
“To-day, among our latest American humorists, such as Josh Billings, The ‘Danbury Newsman,’ and Orpheus C. Kerr, Mark Twain stands alone as the most original humorist that America has produced. He alone is inimitable” [Tenney, Supplement American Literary Realism, Autumn 1981 p162].
December 11 Friday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote:
“Don’t you dare to refuse that invitation to the Atlantic dinner for Tuesday evening. For fear you mayn’t have got it, I’ll just say that it was from the publishers, and asked you to meet Emerson, Aldrich, and all ‘those boys’ at the Parker House at 6 o’clock, Tuesday, Dec. 14. Come! ” [MTHL 1: 51].
December 12 Saturday – Charles Warren Stoddard wrote from Venice of his travels, preceded by this paragraph:
Dear Mark.
December 13 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells suggesting Howells employ some ruse with his wife in order to:
December 14 Monday – In Hartford Sam typed a letter to Howells about Livy catching him in the use of profanity mentioned in Howell’s letter of Dec. 11.
“…nothing but almost inspired lying got me out of this scrape with my scalp. Does your wife give you rats, like this, when you go a little one-sided?” [MTL 6: 316].
December 15 Tuesday – Sam traveled to Boston to attend the dinner at the Parker House, hosted by the Atlantic Monthly for its contributors. About 30 contributors were present. Howells was toastmaster. Guests included: Henry Oscar Houghton, Melancthon M. Hurd, Horace E. Scudder, and George Harrison Mifflin (all business associates of Houghton).
December 16 Wednesday – John M. Hay wrote after reading the first installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi” in the Atlantic.
December 17 Thursday – Sam had brought back from Howells an inscribed copy of A Foregone Conclusion as a gift for Joseph Twichell. Sam presented the book to Joe. In the evening Sam and Joe went to a benefit concert at the Roberts Opera House for the Hartford Young Men’s Institute. They listened to the Yale Glee Club.
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].