February 27 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion about notices of CY and about the health of their mother. He was gratified with Charles H. Clark’s review in the Courant. Of another unspecified review arrived, he wrote that it made him “exceedingly comfortable.” He remarked he’d received “so many uncomplimentary blasts” lately and enjoyed the change. Many of the negative reviews of CY were from the English. Livy was now well. Of Jane Clemens he remarked:

It is a wonderful old lady that can pull through what Ma has been enduring & live. And the more so because when she adopted her deadly water-treatment at 40, she ranked as a confirmed invalid. We are all glad & grateful that she is getting along so well… [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Daniel Whitford, offering his view about Daniel Frohman preferring Abby Richardson’s version to Sam’s, and that he doubted they would come to an agreement. Also he didn’t wish to put Andrew Chatto in an “embarrassing position, but shall leave his contract uninterfered with. In making it he had no interest in view but my protection.” Sam emphasized that Chatto was “the man in authority in England & not me” [MTP].

Life Magazine, originally a humor publication, ran “Mark Twain” on p.121. This was a brief sketch marred by factual errors too gross to be anything but a lampoon:

…Personally, Mr. Twain is a handsome blonde of the African type. He is loved more for his winning ways than his good looks, and has repeatedly refused to be elected keeper of the Hartford dog pound, although the voters of that city would have made the election unanimous. In public speaking Mr. Twain uses a rapid utterance, which makes him the despair of stenographers….[Tenney, ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Spring, 1982) 5-6].

Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam: “I enclose herewith a voting blank. You know every new book we took was to be voted upon.” Hall asked him to vote on the “religious encyclopedia” [MTP]. Note: Elias Benjamin Sanford’s, A Concise Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge., etc. was published by the firm this year.