No letters are known to survive between 20 and 27 November 1871. After his brief respite in Hartford on the weekend of 18–19 November, Clemens traveled to Philadelphia where on 20 November he talked on Artemus Ward at the Academy of Music, attracting the “largest audience ever assembled within its walls to listen to a lecture” (“Mark Twain,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 Nov 71, 3). Philadelphia paid Clemens his top fee of $250, matching what he had received in Boston on 1 November. But he had to share the platform, much as he had done in Washington on 23 October: the Philadelphia Press reported that “benches and chairs placed upon the stage gave accommodation to more than a hundred enthusiastic individuals” for the “peculiarly-delicious” performance (“Mark Twain,” 21 Nov 71, 8).
On 21 November Clemens appeared in Brooklyn at Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church. According to the Brooklyn reviewers the Artemus Ward lecture “heartily pleased” the large audience, evoking “continuous fits of laughter” (“Mark Twain,” Brooklyn Times, 22 Nov 71, no page; “Mark Twain on Artemus Ward,” Brooklyn Eagle, 22 Nov 71, no page).
The following evening Clemens lectured in Rondout, New York, as the opening attraction of the season for “Crane’s Lyceum Entertainments,” managed by Henry M. Crane, who had arranged his Rondout appearances in 1868 and 1870 (“Washington Hall,” Rondout Freeman, 10 Nov 71, 2). The Rondout Freeman thought the lecture
in some degree a disappointment, though funny. Mark was by no means half as humorous as in his last lecture, but his inimitable way took with the audience and kept them in good humor. There was more of Artemas than of Mark in the lecture, but what Mark did put in was genuine humor, except the description of Ward’s death, which was real pathos. It showed Mark’s power of language, and how near akin to grief is genuine humor. (“Mark Twain,” Supplement, 1)
On 23 and 24 November, respectively, Clemens delivered the Easton and Reading, Pennsylvania, lectures he had previously postponed. Nothing is known of his reception in Reading, but in Easton “the majority of those present appeared to greatly enjoy the lecture” (“Mark Twain,” Easton Express, 24 Nov 71, no page). On Saturday and Sunday, 25 and 26 November, Clemens had no lectures scheduled. He seems to have spent at least part of that weekend in Elmira, before going on to Bennington, Vermont, to lecture on 27 November (24 Oct 71 to Redpathclick to open link; L2 , 246–47; L3 , 315–16, 346–47, 353; 3 Dec 71 to OLC, n. 3click to open link).