No letters written between 2 and 15 February 1873 have been found. For much of that time Clemens stayed at the St. Nicholas Hotel, in order to be near his lecture venues in New York City (5 and 10 February) and Brooklyn (7 February). He returned to Hartford briefly on 8 February, and again on 11 February, traveling from there to Jersey City on 13 February for his appearance that evening (“Personal Intelligence,” New York Herald, 2 Feb 73 and 10 Feb 73, 7; John Hay to William A. Seaver, 10 Feb 73, RPB). All four lectures were resoundingly successful. On 5 February the following enthusiastic endorsement appeared on the editorial page of the New York Tribune:
Of course none of our readers will forget that it is to-night Mr. Mark Twain gives for the first time, in Steinway Hall, that new lecture upon the Sandwich Islands, which is expected to exhaust the sum of the learning, the sentiment and the science at present existing in the world in regard to that interesting subject. Many people have visited that fascinating archipelago, but none took the precaution of carrying with them the eyes of Mr. Clemens. The consequence is that those who go to Steinway Hall to-night will get entirely new views of Kanaka civilization, even though they may have resided at Honolulu from their youth up. It must never be forgotten that Mr. Clemens is not only a great humorist, but a great observer and a deep philosophical thinker. (5 Feb 73, 4)
The Tribune also reviewed the lecture favorably, remarking on Clemens’s apparently “unconscious drollery,” and noting that “his hearers never laugh in the wrong place. Perhaps this is because he never indicates either by voice or manner what he thinks the right place for a laugh; and hence his audience has to listen sharply.” The reviewer concluded:
After you have laughed at his wild extravagances for an hour, you are astonished to perceive that he has given you new and valuable views of the subject discussed. Every sentence may be burlesque, but the result is fact. And what insures his success as a teacher is that his manner is so irresistibly droll that it conquers at the first moment the natural revolt of the human mind against instruction. (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” 6 Feb 73, 5)
The New York World described the audience’s reaction:
It is within bounds to say that Steinway Hall has scarcely ever had within its walls so large a number as was last night assembled to hear Mr. Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) tell what he knew about the Sandwich Islands. Every seat was occupied, and when the lecturer began there was not room for the entrance of a single additional person. The platform was equally crowded. Frequent applause and bursts of laughter greeted the numerous telling “points” of fun or wit, though the audience bestowed a similar appreciative attention upon the more serious portions of the lecture. (“‘Mark Twain,’” 6 Feb 73, 8)
Fortunately for the “more than a thousand people” who were “turned away because there was no chance to get in” on 5 February, Clemens appeared again at Steinway Hall on 10 February (“A Crowded House,” Boston Times, 7 Feb 73, clipping in CU-MARK). The reviewer for the Brooklyn Eagle made only the briefest of general observations—noting that the audience at the Academy of Music was large, and that “at the close of the lecture Mr. Clemens went off the stage as he came on, with well feigned awkwardness, and amid loud applause”—but included a lengthy synopsis, of the type that Clemens tried repeatedly to prevent (“Mark Twain,” 10 Feb 73, 4; see 13 and 17 Jan 73 to Reidclick to open link). The Jersey City Evening Journal also reported a “large audience” at the Tabernacle, and reported that “Mark’s genial countenance shone with good humor, which communicated itself to the audience at once”:
It is useless to attempt to follow Twain through his lecture here, for he must be heard to be appreciated. His humor is peculiar, and depends much upon the peculiar style of his delivery. The audience laughed and laughed, until their sides ached, and this seemed to be eminently satisfactory to the hero of the “Innocents Abroad.” (“Mark Twain on the Sandwich Islands,” 14 Feb 73, 1)
Sometime during these days in New York, Clemens had the chance to visit with his old California friend John McComb, an owner and supervising editor of the San Francisco Alta California. McComb had been largely responsible for getting him the assignment to cover the Quaker City excursion. A mutual friend, Frank Soulé, wrote to Clemens on 31 March from the Alta’s editorial rooms: “McComb has just come in. He speaks in the most enthusiastic terms of you, and his hob-nobbing with you in N. Y.” (CU-MARK; L1 , 361; L2 , 12 n. 1). And on 6 April, Joseph T. Goodman wrote Clemens just after returning from a recent stay in San Francisco:
Old John McComb returned from the East during my sojourn, and he devoted one entire afternoon to recounting his intercourse with you in New York. What infinite appreciation and recollection he has! I don’t believe you said a single good thing but what he repeated literally—and then his eyes would sparkle and he would laugh in that unctious way of his till he would shake the building like a mastodon turbulent with merriment. (CU-MARK)
Clemens probably returned to Hartford on 14 February, the day after his final lecture, in Jersey City.