November 30 Sunday – Sam’s 49th birthday. Johann Schiller’s The Fight with the Dragon, a Romance, was inscribed: “Saml. L. Clemens, Nov. 30th, 1884” [Gribben 606]. Note: Perhaps a birthday gift.
Sam and Cable dined with Daniel Coit Gilman (1831-1908), first president of Johns Hopkins University [Turner, MT & GWC 63].
December – Sam telegraphed Charles Webster. The place and day are unknown. “Plucky lawyers are scarce in Hartford,” Sam wrote, but recommended Charles S. Cole if Webster needed a lawyer to go after the American Publishing Co., to sue for copyright in light of the piracy of The Frank Coker News Co. of Talladega, Ala. (See June 26 entry.)
December 1 Monday – The Clemens family drove north a few hours to Simsbury, Conn., where Cable resided. Sam and Cable may have caught a conveyance there to Adams, Mass., on the western side of the state.
December 2 Tuesday – Sam and Cable arrived at Albany, New York at noon. Governor and President-elect Cleveland requested an audience. Writing to Livy the next day about the meeting:
December 3 Wednesday – George W. Cable wrote en route between Albany and Ithaca to his wife, Lucy:
December 4 Thursday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Grand Opera House, Syracuse, NY [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Syracuse, New York to Thomas Nast, thanking him for the Nast family’s recent hospitality in Morristown, N.J.
“…do all your praying now, for a time is coming when you will have to go railroading & platforming, & then you will find you cannot pray any more because you will have only just time to swear enough” [MTP].
December 5 Friday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Opera House, Utica, NY [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Utica, New York to Susy Clemens.
“Susie, my dear, I have been intending to write you & Ben for a long time, but have been too busy. Nach meinen vorlesung in Ithika…” [etc. the rest in German; MTP].
December 6 Saturday – Sam and Cable rose at 4:30 A.M. and took the train to Rochester, New York, arriving at 10 A.M. They gave a 2 PM matinee reading in Rochester at the Academy of Music for a small, but “appreciative to a degree” audience, who fought a downpour to hear the two men.
December 7 Sunday – Sam wrote two more letters from Rochester to Livy. In the first note, Sam admitted being homesick on a “sour, bleak, windy day…with trifling flurries of snow.” He’d stayed in bed all day reading and smoking. Except for the weather the houses would have been overflowing.
The second note in the afternoon was a P.S. describing a “violent & absurd” performance of his “first sample of the Salvation Army” [MTP].
December 8 Monday – Sam and Cable arrived in Toronto, Canada at 4:30 P.M. on the Great Western train from Niagara Falls [Roberts 19]. In Toronto, Rose Publishing Co. applied to Sam to buy the Canadian rights to publish Huck Finn [Dec. 10 to Webster, MTP]. Ozias Pond was not the tour’s manager until after New Year’s day, but came with the pair.
December 9 Tuesday – Sam and Cable were driven around Toronto to see the sights, which included the University of Toronto. They visited the studio of painter Andrew Dickson Patterson (1854-1930) famous a year later for his portrait of Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald (1815-1891).
Sam wrote from Toronto, Canada to Livy:
December 10 Wednesday – The Dawson Brothers in Canada and Chatto & Windus in London published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Powers, MT A Life 489; Roberts 22].
December 11 Thursday – Sam “rushed to David Gray’s…with Cable, arrived at noon” and had to wait for his steak to be re-cooked, and so drank two cups of strong coffee that did not agree with him [Dec. 12 to Livy, MTP].
Sam and Cable gave a second reading in Concert Hall, Buffalo, New York.
The Buffalo Times:
December 12 Friday – Sam took a train from Buffalo at 12:30 A.M. and arrived at Ann Arbor, Mich. at 10 A.M. Sam wrote from Ann Arbor to Livy:
December 13 Saturday – Two copies of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were deposited in the Copyright Office, Library of Congress, though the official publication did not take place until Feb. 18, 1885 [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996].
December 14 Sunday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Muskegon, Mich. on Dec. 14. Previously reported as Dec. 4. See SLC to Andrew Chatto on Dec. 14, also from Muskegon. Mark Twain Journal misreported the date.
December 15 Monday – Sam wrote two letters from Toledo, Ohio to Livy. After remarking on the “prettiest furniture” of the hotel the night before in Jackson, Mich., Sam told of his day:
“We got up at 5 & took the train. All the way, in the cars, was a mother with her first child—the proudest & silliest fool I have struck this year. She beat the new brides that one sees on the trains” [MTP].
December 16 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Whitney’s Grand Opera House, Detroit, Michigan. The Detroit Post featured the Toledo visit, observing that Sam’s gait:
…resembled the motion of a tall boy on short stilts, [with] one of the oddest looking faces ever worn by man…his neck swan-like and white, but much thicker than a swan’s [Cardwell 29].
December 17 Wednesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Case Hall, Cleveland, Ohio [MTPO]. Clemens included: readings from HF, “A Ghost Story,” “Personal Anecdote” [MTPO].
A review of Sam and Cable’s readings ran in the Detroit Post and included the following “interview”:
A “POST” REPORTER DISTURBS TWAIN AND INTERVIEWS CABLE.
December 18 Thursday – Sam and Cable took a Christmas break, this day being a travel day. Sam headed for New York where he spent the night at the Everett House, where he’d asked Webster to call on the morning of Dec. 19 [Dec. 15 to Webster, MTP]. Cable headed to his home in Simsbury, Conn., but stopped in New York where he appeared alone on Dec.
December 19 Friday – Sam, after meeting with Charles Webster, probably headed straight home for Hartford, although no documentation for this date has been found. Upon reaching home, Sam was in store for a surprise.
December 20 Saturday – The Dec. 20, 1884 article by H.B. Stephens, “Mark Twain’s ‘Dorg’,” which ran in Every Other Saturday, is available in The Twainian (July-Aug. 1953) p.3-4, and contains a letter from Sam to Stephens, as well as a reference to a prior incoming letter from Stephens, both letters undated and unlisted by MTP. The article (which seems to have had much input from Mark Twain) plus Sam’s letter with poem, “My Dog Burns” are given here in full:
MARK TWAIN’S “DORG”
December 22 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Laurence Hutton, congratulating Miss Eleanor Varnum Mitchell, soon to be Mrs. Laurence Hutton.
“And now I am relieved of a burden which has long been secretly oppressing my heart. Months ago, fully aware of the relations existing between you & my daughter, I was shocked & grieved to discover that she had transferred her affections to a horse kitten” [MTP].
December 23 Tuesday – Sam wrote two letters from Hartford to Charles Webster. Sam enclosed an advertisement by Estes & Lauriat of Boston for “Just ready” copies of HF, reduced from $2.75 to $2.25; Sam was infuriated.
Charley, if this is a lie, let Alexander & Green sue them for damages instantly. And if we have no chance at them in law, tell me at once & I will publish them as thieves & swindlers.
December 24 Wednesday – Edward Zane Carroll Judson (Ned Buntline) wrote to Clemens:
My Dear—Two Fathoms—/ A Merry Christmas / to you—merrier than when / we met in Cal. & Nevada / years—long years ago, / in 67—& 68. / Will you / Kindly tell me the names / of the Subscription / Book Publishers / in your town. I have / a job for some one / of ‘em. / Resp. & Truly / E Z C Judson / “Ned” [MTP].