February 24 Friday – Sam gave a reading at Twichell’s Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Hartford, Reported in Hartford Courant, Feb. 25, page 3: “Additional City News” [Schmidt].

The Century’s art editor, W. Lewis Fraser, informed Sam that Abbott H. Thayer (1849-1921) was chosen to draw Sam’s portrait for the Sept. issue. The portrait was to go with an essay on Sam by Howells. Sam made a note to write the artist [MTNJ 2: 449n40].

Sam wrote from Hartford to Edward W. Bok (1863-1930) who had written asking for something in writing from Sam.

“…no man takes pleasure in exercising his trade as a pastime. Writing is my trade, and I exercise it only when I am obliged to. You might make your request of a doctor, or a builder, or a sculptor…It would never be fair to ask a doctor for one of his corpses to remember him by” [MTP].

Note: Bok was born in the Netherlands; at the age of six, he immigrated to Brooklyn and became an office boy with the Western Union Telegraph Co. in 1876. In the same year as this letter, 1882, he began work with Henry Holt & Co.; in 1884, he became involved with Scribner’s, where he eventually became advertising manager. From 1884 until 1887, Bok was the editor of The Brooklyn Magazine, and in 1886, he founded The Bok Syndicate Press. From this, he gained the editorship of Ladies Home Journal in 1889. Bok won the Pulitzer prize for best autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok, and is credited for coining the word “living room” to replace the older “parlor” (not on his tombstone).

Sam also typed a long letter to Hattie and Karl Gerhardt about their progress and artists they knew in common. He asked after Walter F. Brown, the artist who illustrated Tramp Abroad. He apologized for typing the letter due to being “full of rheumatism and laziness.” Everyone was sick at the Clemens residence and they’d “been through a long siege of house building and decorating, and have had a good deal of company in the house” so that Livy had not been able to write but would do so soon [MTP].

W. Lewis Fraser for Century Co. wrote “I enclose a note from Mr. Abbott H. Thayer, the artist who is to draw your portrait. Will this suit you?” [MTP].

Abbott H. Thayer wrote a postcard promising to do Sam’s portrait in two sittings of 3 hrs each [MTP].