He sailed November 12th on the Batavia, arriving in New York two weeks later.  There had been a presidential election in his absence.  General Grant had defeated Horace Greeley, a result, in some measure at least, attributed to the amusing and powerful pictures of the cartoonist, Thomas Nast.  Mark Twain admired Greeley’s talents, but he regarded him as poorly qualified for the nation’s chief executive.  He wrote: 

To Th.  Nast, in Morristown, N. J.: 

         &nb
sp;                                   Hartford, Nov. 1872. 
Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigious victory for Grant—­I mean, rather, for civilization and progress.  Those pictures were simply marvelous, and if any man in the land has a right to hold his head up and be honestly proud of his share in this year’s vast events that man is unquestionably yourself.  We all do sincerely honor you, and are proud of you. 
                                   Mark twain.

Perhaps Mark Twain was too busy at this time to write letters.  His success in England had made him more than ever popular in America, and he could by no means keep up with the demands on him.  In January he contributed to the New York Tribune some letters on the Sandwich Islands, but as these were more properly articles they do not seem to belong here.

He refused to go on the lecture circuit, though he permitted Redpath to book him for any occasional appearance, and it is due to one of these special engagements that we have the only letter preserved from this time.  It is to Howells, and written with that exaggeration with which he was likely to embellish his difficulties.  We are not called upon to believe that there were really any such demonstrations as those ascribed to Warner and himself.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Farmingtonave, Hartford Feb. 27.  My dear Howells,—­I am in a sweat and Warner is in another.  I told Redpath some time ago I would lecture in Boston any two days he might choose provided they were consecutive days—­

I never dreamed of his choosing days during Lent since that was his special horror—­but all at once he telegraphs me, and hollers at me in all manner of ways that I am booked for Boston March 5 of all days in the year—­and to make matters just as mixed and uncertain as possible, I can’t find out to save my life whether he means to lecture me on the 6th or not.

Warner’s been in here swearing like a lunatic, and saying he had written you to come on the 4th,—­and I said, “You leather-head, if I talk in Boston both afternoon and evening March 5, I’ll have to go to Boston the 4th,”—­and then he just kicked up his heels and went off cursing after a fashion I never heard of before.

Now let’s just leave this thing to Providence for 24 hours—­you bet it
will come out all right. 
                                   Yours ever
                                             mark.