Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. Autograph letter signed ("Saml.") to his wife Livy in Hartford, Chicago, "Palmer House," 11 November [1879]. 1 1/2 pages, 9vo, in pencil on lined stationery, a few revisions by Clemens, with original stamped envelope addressed by him.
TWAIN IN CHICAGO
"...I walked over 76 miles, yesterday, round about the town, inspecting the outsides of beautiful & costly dwellings, the water-works machinery, the street-decorations for the [President Ulysses S.] Grant reception, & so forth, & had a good time....I went to three theatres with a lot of newspaper men; staid [sic] but a few minutes at two of them, but saw a whole act at the third. It was the first act of [H.M.S.] Pinafore, admirably done by children -- little children, like ours. The characters were most excellently taken -- it was a marvel to see it...I was home & in bed at 10 o'clock. Drank 11 gallons of Appollinaris water, & 1 glass of lager during the evening; drank one Scotch whisky in bed, read 2 hours, & went to sleep without needing the other punch."
Clemens was in Chicago to attend a gala reception for President Grant (who, like Clemens, had recently returned from a stay in Europe). On the night of 11 November Clemens gave one of his most famous speeches at a banquet for Grant at the Palmer House. "In Chicago, in November, Mark Twain celebrated his reconciliation with America, joined his destiny to that of Grant, and also, by his own account, reached the high point of his career as speechmaker" -- Justin Kaplan, Mark Twain and His World (New York, 1982), p. 120.
TWAIN IN CHICAGO
"...I walked over 76 miles, yesterday, round about the town, inspecting the outsides of beautiful & costly dwellings, the water-works machinery, the street-decorations for the [President Ulysses S.] Grant reception, & so forth, & had a good time....I went to three theatres with a lot of newspaper men; staid [sic] but a few minutes at two of them, but saw a whole act at the third. It was the first act of [H.M.S.] Pinafore, admirably done by children -- little children, like ours. The characters were most excellently taken -- it was a marvel to see it...I was home & in bed at 10 o'clock. Drank 11 gallons of Appollinaris water, & 1 glass of lager during the evening; drank one Scotch whisky in bed, read 2 hours, & went to sleep without needing the other punch."
Clemens was in Chicago to attend a gala reception for President Grant (who, like Clemens, had recently returned from a stay in Europe). On the night of 11 November Clemens gave one of his most famous speeches at a banquet for Grant at the Palmer House. "In Chicago, in November, Mark Twain celebrated his reconciliation with America, joined his destiny to that of Grant, and also, by his own account, reached the high point of his career as speechmaker" -- Justin Kaplan, Mark Twain and His World (New York, 1982), p. 120.