April 17 Sunday – In Hartford Sam telegraphed Augustin Daly that he would be there [MTP]. Just where he did not say.

Sam also wrote to Charles Webster. Even after Webster’s “demands” of Apr. 1, Sam was happy with the way things were going:

Good — it is all good news. Everything is on the pleasantest possible basis, now, & is going to stay so. I blame myself for not looking in on you oftener in the past — that would have prevented all trouble. I mean to stand my duty better now.

Sam pledged to “run down every little while,” except for the summer months when the family would be in Elmira. Note: If Charles’ negotiations for a new contract had caused antagonisms, Sam’s letter certainly did not show it.

Wesley Merritt for West Point Military Academy wrote to Sam.

Dear Mr. Clemens:

I hope you have not forgotten your promises to visit us this Spring. Now is the time. We hope for Spring and the artillery drill which was another important specification in your visit is at its full. I want to express to you that you will favor us with a visit bringing Mrs. Clemens with you, say Thursday the 21st or the 28th and remain over until the following Monday. Of course you must lecture on the Saturday evening of your stay and you must be here Thursday and Friday to see the dress drills. In other words we can’t have drill on Saturday and can’t have a lecture on any other evening than Saturday. Mrs. Merritt will write Mrs. Clemens seconding this invitation. I hope to hear from you that you will come. Also, won’t Dr. Twichell come? He will have a warm welcome and be cared for by friends here. Everybody, including the Cadets, is wild to have you here again.

Hoping to hear from you favorably, I am with Great Respect / Very Truly Yours / W. Merritt [Leon 236].

The San Francisco Morning Call ran an article, “Mark Twain,” by George E. Barnes, the man who hired and fired Sam for that paper in 1864 [Tenney 16]. Through excerpts quoted by Fatout (MT in VC) one can see that Barnes took a contrarian position regarding some aspects of Clemens. Barnes claimed that Sam “had not the faculty of winning friendships,” [46] and that his conversation “was not brilliant, nor even interesting” because “he rarely gave tongue to the bright things that were evolved in his brain under the inspiring influence of time and congenial fellowship.” Sam and Artemus Ward “kept the ‘happy thoughts’ in his brain till he could print them with profit, and this is the reason that, with both, conversation became nearly a lost art” [126].