In my WIP, Mark Twain Day By Day, I have this entry, based upon Sam's
letter
10 years after they supposedly met. My question is, since the Quaker City
arrived in NY on November 19th at 10AM, and with Sam leaving for
Washington,
probably on a night train on the 21st (MTL vol 2,p109n2)--there is only a
two
day window they could have met, unless Nast was in Washington DC, where Sam
went to work for Senator Stewart briefly. If the following entry is
inaccurate,
and/or if you have a source for the date and place of their meeting, I'd
appreciate it.
November 19th or 20th Wednesday - After the Quaker City returned and
before
Sam left for Washington, he met Thomas Nast, famous illustrator and
cartoonist, who proposed a lecture tour with him drawing and Sam speaking:
Therefore I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November, 1867 -
ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.: That you should stand on the
platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience.
I
should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns - don't want to go
to
little ones) with you for company. [12 Nov 77 to Nast in MTL, 1:311]
In searching for this piece of information, I discovered that Albert Paine
had worked on a Nast biography prior to Twain's. From Paine:
It was more than three years before I saw him again. Meantime, a sort of
acquaintance had progressed. I had been engaged in writing the life of
Thomas
Nast, the cartoonist, and I had found among the material a number of
letters to
Nast from Mark Twain. I was naturally anxious to use those fine
characteristic letters, and I wrote him for his consent. He wished to see
the letters,
and the permission that followed was kindness itself. His admiration of
Nast
was very great. [MTbio]
Albert B. Paine, Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures (1981). This is
reprinted from a 1904 MacMillan edition.
I don't have this book, but perhaps the answer is in it. What do you have?
Albert B. Paine, Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures (1981).
David H Fears
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