The Greatest Banquet in American History

At the Palmer House, Chicago, with Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, and Bertha Palmer, 1879

The second Palmer House, completed in 1873. Getty Images

Samuel Clemens was born November 30th, 1835 — Happy Birthday, Mark Twain!

As my friend Amy Razeghi of

Constellations In Her Bones

reminded me, he arrived with a comet and exited with one.

It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet.

The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now there are the…