August 31 Wednesday – The Clemens family waited in Elmira for most of the work to be completed on their Hartford house. Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about locating Herbert M. Laurence a New York decorator; about a request to secure four acting copies of Hamlet from Samuel French on Nassau Street; and advised to keep back a day’s wages for the workmen. Several more pages of details were included about the Kaolatype business [MTBus 167].
Sam was working on a burlesque Hamlet which involved an additional character, “Basil Stockmar,” who was trying to sell subscription books. Howells actually liked the idea [Powers, MT A Life 453]. Note: Joe Goodman liked this idea so much he “blocked out” such a work to show Sam the possibilities—see Mar. 18, 1883 entry.
Sam also wrote from Elmira to Karl and Hattie Gerhardt, congratulating them on winning an art competition called the “Concours”; Sam showed their last letter to Augustus Saint-Gaudens while traveling from Boston to Elmira. Saint-Gaudens was spending “the coming ten days in Hartford,” Sam wrote. He mentioned hanging “with bated breath upon the bulletins from Washington” about President Garfield’s condition. Sam also enclosed a new letter of £100 credit for his young protégé, and a half page of advice about worrying for the future:
Every time one wastes a thought on the future he misses a trick in the present. …
However, I wouldn’t talk so feelingly on this subject, but for one circumstance: I have never taken thought about my future, & it has always come out about right; but my brother has devoted all of the 56 years of his life to trying to fix up his future satisfactorily. Well, now, don’t you know, by the time he gets it fixed up just right, there won’t be any of it left? Lord bless you, he is the very worst failure that ever lived. Brim full of talent, too [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Edward R. Faxon, offering Karl Gerhardt’s Paris address; letter not extant but referred to on Faxon’s snarky reply of Sept. 11.
Hubbard & Farmer bankers & brokers sent a statement of Sam’s acct. with a Sept. 1 balance credit of $28,825.77 [MTP].