October 25 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:
Oct. 25. To be attended to tomorrow:
Furnace doesn’t heat enough.
Sell cow if she is going dry.
We not to keep 3 cows.
D. is a failure; can’t raise turnips & roses.
Fix damp place in library shelves.
See Barnard of the Committee [Note: Henry Barnard was a member of the committee to choose a sculptor for the Nathan Hale statue in the state capitol building in Hartford. See MTNJ 2:75n29]
October 25 Monday – Sam was in Washington, where he didn’t sleep well this night [Oct. 26 to Livy].
October 25 Tuesday – Hjalmar Boyesen wrote to Sam thanking him “heartily for your great kindness to my countrymen,” which he & Livy had shown to Claes Lewenhaupt; it would affect Swedish society [MTP].
October 25 Thursday – Sam and Livy arrived in New York at the Murray Hill Hotel. The Cranes arrived in the city at 9:30 p.m. Afterward, Sam wrote to Grace E.
October 25 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe who had invited him to speak before the Boston Press Club in early November. Sam thanked him but wrote,
I shall without doubt be compelled to spend the first ten days of November in Washington [MTP].
Karl Gerhardt wrote a short note to Sam: “Enclosed please find quarterly receipts on policy no-333154-Equitable Life $5000-to date” [MTP].
October 25 Saturday – Sam and Clara Clemens were in the second day of their visit at Bryn Mawr College with Susy.
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam that he would be “up next Tuesday on the train that leaves New York at 8 o’clock and arrives Hartford at 11.38” [MTP].
October 26 Tuesday – Sam gave a political speech at a Republican Rally for James A. Garfield at the Hartford Opera House. The speech and exposition is in Fatout’s Mark Twain Speaking [138-144]. Sam used hieroglyphic notes, which he sent to Howells in a letter of Oct. 28.
October 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. Evidently, Webster had voiced objections about the Paige typesetter and tried to direct Sam to help in some way about the machine. Sam’s pushed back, claiming the investment was Hamersley’s not his, save for $5,000:
October 26 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James B. Pond, directing him never to print a program “till a day or two before it is to be used.” Sam knew that practice and change on the circuit would most likely be necessary. He recommended they “get up a third program” (instead of using two and alternating), “& practice it on the small towns too, before we strike Boston” [MTP].
October 26 Monday – Sam had returned to New York, this time with Livy [see Oct. 28 to Annie Webster]. He made a notebook entry that “Up to date, 320,000 sets of General Grant’s book have been subscribed for—that is to say, 640,000 single volumes” [MTNJ 3: 204]. He also noted seeing a play at the Metropolitan in New York.:
October 26 Tuesday – In Washington, General Philip H. Sheridan wrote a letter of introduction for Sam to Maj. Gen. J.M. Schofield. “You will find him a clever nice fellow and an interesting gentleman.” It was not discovered if Sam used the letter and met with Schofield [MTP].
Sam left Washington at about 3 or 4 P.M. and returned to New York. He wrote to Livy at 10 P.M.:
October 26 Friday – Edmund C. Stedman wrote a long letter to Sam arguing the value of the Library of American Literature. “You have made no ‘losses’, & will make none,” Stedman stated. “Look elsewhere for the causes of an adverse balance-sheet” [MTNJ 3: 430n 73]. No doubt Sam was biased against the work since it was the pet project of his ex-partner, Charles Webster.
October 26 Saturday – Sam’s notebook carries an entry with this date that he offered his friend Henry C. Robinson royalties on the Paige typesetter at the same price he’d given Clara Spaulding Stanchfield [3: 524]. Note: Robinson, an attorney, was a Friday night billiards regular.
Robert Underwood Johnson for Century Magazine wrote to Sam :
October 26 Sunday – Sam and Clara Clemens were in the third and last day of their visit at Bryn Mawr College with Susy. See Nov. 4 from Burdette.
In Hartford Livy wrote to her mother:
October 27 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George Baker, the merchant who had sold Sam the music box in Geneva Switzerland. The wrong box arrived, damaged. He’d wanted the one shown to him that only used violin sounds and vox humana tones; what arrived had drums and bells and “tinklings.” The damage was slight and repairable.
October 27 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Clara M. Wilson, a girl who had written asking for an autograph with sentiment. “Most of these swell proverbs which we have fed on, morally, all our lives, are brim full of humor…” Sam gave an example: “A lie carries with it its own antidote.”
October 27 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Charles Webster, asking if he had the “old cut” of a form-card for printing which answered that Sam had “quitted the platform permanently”; Sam wanted 300 printed on white cards like the one he enclosed, monogram not needed [MTP].
October 27 Friday – In Hartford Sam typed a note to Andrew Chatto asking for maps that they couldn’t find and that his governess wanted. Could they be shipped? [MTP]. The Clemens children’s governess since 1880 was Lilly Gillette Foote.
October 27, 1884 Monday, after
October 27 Monday, after – Sam wrote from Hartford to James B. Pond—a longer letter with details of the upcoming tour, including Gerhardt plaques [MTP].
James B. Pond wrote to Clemens, not having heard a word concerning the programme. “Mr. Cable wrote you about it, sending the division of the time” [MTP].
October 27 Tuesday – Livy shopped while Sam tried to finish business but failed to visit his niece, Annie. After stopping at Mrs. Grant’s, he could not see Charles Webster in time to catch his train. Livy was worn out (Sam wrote “she had the cholera morbus lately”). The trip went all wrong, Sam wrote, and he apologized for not calling [MTP].
October 27 Wednesday – Sam was in New York, attending to business.
Dora Wheeler wrote from Cleveland, Sam’s letter having been forwarded from N.Y. “You are more than good to be willing to sit for me.” Dora intended to go to Hartford after Nov. 15. “Do you think Mr. Warner will let me do the same by him? Your letter to Mr Howells I know is alright — tho I have not yet seen it. I am very much obliged” [MTP].
October 27 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster about a book of the late Nathaniel Judson Burton’s (he died Oct. 13) lectures and sermons that his son, Richard E. Burton had assembled.
October 27 Saturday – With the completion of a street lamp at Sam’s expense the special officer Heise, also at Sam’s expense at $2.73 per day, was let go [MTNJ 3: 427]. See Oct. 15.
October 27 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote again, unable to come for the visit he’d planned.
I am awfully sorry to put myself off; but we are blistering under the curse of house-hunting, and till something is decided, we are mere shrieks of agony. May I ask myself on a little later?
The book is glorious — simply noble. What masses of virgin truth never touched in print before!
Would the book make it out by Dec. 20? He didn’t want to “make a fool of the Study” [MTHL 2: 617].
October 27 Monday – Jane Lampton Clemens, Sam’s mother, died at age 87.
Sam and Clara Clemens left Bryn Mawr and arrived back in Hartford by evening where they were met with the news of Jane’s death, probably by telegram from Orion and Mollie Clemens [Oct. 23 to Hall].
James G. Batterson for Travelers Insurance, Hartford wrote to Sam: “News from Bryn Mawr received. I shall be at my office all day to-morrow” [MTP].