Only one letter has been found for the period between 18 March and 14 April, during which Clemens arrived in San Francisco. His negotiations with the owners of the Alta California may have begun promptly upon his arrival, late on the afternoon of 2 April, but no public reference to their disagreement, or its resolution, has been found. For the next two weeks, however, his attention was also to a great extent directed toward arranging and publicizing a lecture engagement in the city, which would provide some much-needed income.
Clemens’s publicity efforts were very public indeed. On 3 April the Alta—apparently without rancor—reported that “the genial and jolly humorist” had arrived the previous day and that he proposed “to lecture in a few days.” On 4 April the Critic identified his lecture topic as “the results of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land.” By 10 April the Examiner (among others) reported a definite time and place: 14 April at Platt’s Hall, where Clemens had had his largest audience in 1866. And by 12 April the California Weekly Mercury reported that when “the Pilgrim has finished his story here, he will tell it to the people of the interior,” which suggests that Clemens was now planning to tour California and Nevada towns, despite his intention of the previous November to limit himself to “3 nights in San Francisco, 1 in Sacramento & maybe 1 in Virginia” (“Arrival of the Sacramento” and “Arrivals,” San Francisco Alta California, 3 Apr 68, 1; “Mark Twain’s Lecture,” San Francisco Critic, 4 Apr 68, 3; “Mark Twain’s Re-Appearance,” San Francisco Examiner, 10 Apr 68, 3; “Miscellaneous Items,” California Weekly Mercury 12 [12 Apr 68]: 5; 24 Nov 67 to Fullerclick to open link).
The principal San Francisco newspapers frequently reprinted extracts from Clemens’s correspondence with the Alta, Enterprise, New York Tribune, Chicago Republican, and other journals. And many San Francisco editors treated him as a celebrity, reporting his activities no matter how slight. The Alta, for instance, reported that on 6 April he spoke informally at the monthly meeting of a “Literary Society” recently formed by the “younger members of Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth’s Calvary Presbyterian Church” in order to “indulge in readings, declamations, vocal and instrumental music, etc.” Clemens was “in the audience, and in response to an invitation by the management, took the platform in place of an absent singer, and made a speech, which was received with the liveliest applause” (“New Literary Society,” San Francisco Alta California, 7 Apr 68, 1; reprinted by the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 10 Apr 68, 2; see also ET&S2 , 536–37).
Similarly, on 7 and 9 April the Times announced a “musical and literary entertainment ... for the benefit of the Methodist Episcopal Church” in Oakland, which would be served by a special ferry to Alameda, “leaving the wharf on this side at 6 o’clock, and returning at 11.” In the second notice the editor added, “In addition to the entertainment already announced, it is understood that Mark Twain will have a few words to say on this occasion” (“Amusements,” San Francisco Times, 7 and 9 Apr 68, 1). Clemens did speak in Oakland on 9 April, but his difficulties in getting across the bay were more fully reported than the speech itself. It was probably his friend James F. Bowman, now the local editor for the Oakland News as well as for the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, who published the following account:
Yesterday afternoon, about four o’clock, Mark Twain might have been seen rushing madly about in the neighborhood of the Oakland and Alameda ferry landings, on the San Francisco side, inquiring in a bewildered manner of all whom he met, “which boat he ought to take in order to get to the place where the dinner is to come off?” “What dinner?” inquired a benevolent looking citizen, who seemed to think that something was the matter with the pilgrim from the Holy Land. “Well,” responded Mark, with a bewildered look, “that’s the question. I agreed yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that, or some time or other, to go somewhere to a dinner that was to come off to-day, or maybe to-morrow, or perhaps to-morrow night, at some d—m place across the Bay. I don’t know exactly where it is, or when it is, or who I agreed with. All I know is, I’m advertised in the newspapers to be some where, some time or other this week, to dine, or lecture, or something or other—and I want to find out where the d—l it is, and how to get there.” (“Mark Twain Lost,” Oakland News, 10 Apr 68, 3; reprinted by the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 14 Apr 68, 2)
Personal items aside, the San Francisco newspapers frequently reminded readers of the forthcoming lecture, no doubt in part because Clemens purchased advertising space from most of them. His advertisements for “Pilgrim Life, Being a Sketch of His Notorious Voyage to Europe, Palestine, Etc., on Board the Steamship Quaker City” ran routinely from 11 through 14 April. On 10 April, however, the San Francisco Evening Bulletin volunteered the following as an item of news:
Mark Twain will give a rollicking sketch of the Quaker City Pilgrimage at Platt’s Hall on Tuesday of next week. We are sure that the bare announcement of the fact will be sufficient to insure a crowded house. Our citizens have a pleasant recollection of his lecture on the Haw[a]iian Islands last year, and the desire to hear him rehearse his experiences of travel in Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land, will be very general. (“Lecture by Mark Twain,” 10 Apr 68, 3)
The next morning, 11 April, the Alta followed suit:
“Mark Twain’s” reputation as a humorist is so well established that it is only necessary to make the announcement of the evening set apart for his lecture to ensure a crowded Hall; his letters have caused a sensation greater than anything ever before published in California, and all the readers will wish to see the man who has given them so much amusement, while those who enjoy his acquaintance will deem it a duty to be numbered in the audience, for most of them believe that he will give some amusing details that he would not trust to print. (“‘Mark Twain’s’ Sermon on Pilgrim Life,” 11 Apr 68, 1)
Such hints about unpublishable “amusing details” of the voyage doubtless originated with Clemens himself, but the trick was picked up and elaborated for him by journals such as the Golden Era, which remarked that he “announces his intention to enter minutely into the scandal of the Quaker City, ... and how his innate morality was unsuccessfully assailed during his brief but perilous career.” And the Alta soon returned to this theme as well: “If he tells on the platform one-half the personal incidents he relates in conversation the audience will have a rare treat: his repartee on Captain Duncan, of the Quaker City, is very comical” (“Platt’s Hall is engaged Tuesday ... ,” Golden Era 16 [12 Apr 68]: 4; “‘Mark Twain’s’ Lecture, To-night,” San Francisco Alta California, 14 Apr 68, 1).
On 14 April, Clemens gave his first performance—before a full house at Platt’s Hall, sixteen hundred strong. The lecture itself was evidently a reworking of material already developed for “The Frozen Truth” lecture, delivered in early January in Washington (see 8 Jan 68 to JLC and PAM, n. 7click to open link). For reasons explained in the second of the next two letters, however, no text or summary of it has survived.