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:
“I don’t need to do anything to protect the $5000 invested in that machine; it is safe, there, & is very much the best investment I have ever had. I want an opportunity to add to it—that is how I feel about it” [MTBus 173].
Sam added that he wanted Whitford’s law firm to scare the publishers of A Tramp Abroad (American Publishing Co.) into releasing copyright back to Sam, since they had no money to fight him with.
“…they have paid 25 per cent too much for the manufacture of the Tramp Abroad, from the beginning—a lost to me of $5,000 & upwards. (My bottom object would be, to frighten them into giving up all my copyrights…” [MTBus 174].
Sam also wrote to Charles Warren Stoddard in the Sandwich Islands [MTLP 404]. Paine: “At the time of this letter, Stoddard had decided that in the warm light and comfort of the Sandwich Islands he could survive on his literary earnings.”
MY DEAR CHARLIE,—A Parthian Arrow [meaning, a parting shot]. Now what have I ever done to you that you should not only slide off to Heaven before you have earned a right to go, but must add the gratuitous villainy of informing me of it?...
The house is full of carpenters & decorators; whereas, what we really need here, is an incendiary. If the house would only burn down, we would pack up the cubs & fly to the isles of the blest, & shut ourselves up in the healing solitudes of the crater of Haleakala & get a good rest; for the mails do not intrude there, nor yet the telephone & the telegraph. & after resting, we would come down the mountain a piece & board with a godly, breech-clouted native, & eat poi & dirt & give thanks to whom all thanks belong, for these privileges, & never house-keep any more.
…
Maybe you think I am not happy? the very thing that gravels me is that I am. I don't want to be happy when I can't work; I am resolved that hereafter I won't be. What I have always longed for, was the privilege of living forever away up on one of those mountains in the Sandwich Islands overlooking the sea.
Yours ever / MARK.
That magazine article of yours was mighty good: up to your very best I think. I enclose a book review written by Howells [MTLP 404]. Notes: 1) The first sentence Sam’s letter to Charles Warren Stoddard was cut in Paine’s version (MTLP 404). It was: “A Parthian arrow?” (meaning a parting shot) Sam was clearly replying to a note from Stoddard, not extant but shown by Sam’s letter to Howells this same day as a “postal card” [MTHL 1: 378]. 2) The review of Howells that Sam was “delighted with” was unsigned of the forthcoming P&P in the NY Tribune of Oct. 25 (available online in Chronicling America).
Sam also wrote to Howells:
I am delighted with your review, & so is Mrs. Clemens. What you have said, there, will convince anybody that reads it; a body cannot help it. That is the kind of a review to have; the doubtful man; even the prejudiced man, is persuaded, & succumbs. …
What a queer blunder that was, about the baronet. I can’t quite see how I ever made it. There was an opulent abundance of things I didn’t know; & consequently no need to trench upon the vest-pocketful of things I did know, to get material for a blunder [MTHL 1: 377-8].
Sam also wrote to Hjalmar Boyesen thanking him for his book, just arrived, Queen Titania. Sam promised to send him P&P when it was out Dec. 1 and said the family was all well save for baby Jean, who was teething [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Orion answering that he preferred to “keep these old letters myself,” that is, letters written by his father, John Marshall Clemens.
“I wish I had fifty more; & I wish to blazes pa hadn’t had the bad fashion of writing on both sides of the page. But postage was a serious matter in those days.”
He added that P&P would issue in England and Germany shortly before the U.S. on Dec. 1 and He added that “Clara is 45½ inches; Susie 50¾” and enclosed a photo of baby Jean [MTBus 174].
Sam also wrote to Edward House, about the baronet fix on P&P, and a possibly discrepancy in Chatto’s version affecting copyright, something Osgood feared by changing a page.
“The decorators are banging away here. Began yesterday. They’ve got scaffoldings everywhere; but they make no prophecies; can’t be persuaded to. But they are at work in an energetic way, & I think we’ll soon see our way to guessing out a date for our visit” [MTP].
Charles Webster wrote to Clemens, confident he could “get the money” for the typesetting machine but “The machine must have merit” [MTP].
Miss Marian P. Whitney wrote from New Haven to Clemens: “Father is so busy now with this meeting of the Oriental Society that, rather than let your letter wait till he can find time to answer it, he has handed it over to me.” She gave an address for Mrs. Edwin A. Walker that Sam had evidently requested [MTP]. William D. Whitney’s daughter.
October 26? Wednesday – Livy started a letter to her sister, Susan Crane, writing a couple of lines about the weather and asking for her to visit. Sam finished it with:
(That is as far as Livy got—a visitor has called her off; & as I have telephoned for a District messenger to come & take these letters to the mail, I’ll not wait for her to finish what she was going to say, but leave you to guess it. I judge she was going to say “seems as if we should regard that as the highest favor Heaven could vouchsafe us.” To which I add, Amen. Lovingly, Sam [ )] [MTP]