February 14 Saturday – General William Tecumseh Sherman died in Boston. The NY Times, Feb. 15, 1891, p.2 reported:
A NATION MOURNS HIS LOSS.
TRIBUTES OF RESPECT AND LOVE FROM OTHER CITIES.
BOSTON, Feb. 14. — The news of Gen. Sherman’s death was generally announced to the citizens by the tolling of the fire alarm bells. The flags on State, municipal, and Federal buildings were placed at half mast. Mayor Matthews has called a special meeting of the City Government for Monday, the 16th, to take formal action upon the death of Gen. Sherman.
In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to Frederick J. Hall that he’d been wrong about calculating postage and the “mailing clerk” was right [MTP]. He also wrote (Not extant, See Feb. 18) to J.E. Kingsley & Co., Phila. inquiring about a package of shoes that Livy had ordered from Wannamaker’s dept. store [MTP].
Andrew Lang’s article, “The Art of Mark Twain,” ran in the Illustrated London News, XCVIII, p.222. Lang gives a defense of Mark Twain as a serious writer besides being a gifted humorist: “I have abstained from reading his work on an American at the Court of King Arthur, because here Mark Twain is not, and cannot be, at the proper point of view. He has not the knowledge which would enable him to be a sound critic of the Middle Ages…[but in TS and HF he reveals himself as] “one among the greatest contemporary makers of fiction [and HF is] a masterpiece.” This piece was reprinted in The Critic (London) on Mar. 7 as “Mr. Lang on the Art of Mark Twain” [Tenney 20].
Baetzhold writes,
“Lang’s defense did not succeed in removing the stigma which had helped to cause British sales of all Clemens’ books to fall off by two-thirds of their usual volume, for they remained at that level for some three years longer. Not only had the new novel failed to ‘pry up the English nation to a little higher level of manhood,’ but it had succeeded in reducing the author’s income at a time when he badly needed all the money he could get his hands on” [John Bull 164].
The N.Y. Times, of Feb. 13 p.8 ran “GOOD BOOKS FOR THE POOR,” which discussed the St. Valentines Night Bazaar of Feb.14 sponsored by the Aguilar Free Library Society, to be addressed by Carl Schurz and Brander Matthews. Note below Sam’s contributions to both “The “Authors’ Valentine” and “The Author’s Volumes,” with covers designed and painted by Dora Wheeler. Sam’s middle initial was often reported incorrectly, this time as “J.”
Two novel features of the bazaar will be “The Authors’ Valentine” and “The Authors’ Volumes.” The former consists of manuscript verses by the following authors, signed and written for the occasion, bound in a satin cover painted and designed by Dora Wheeler: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walt Whitman, George William Curtis, Edward Eggleston, William Dean Howells, Margaret Deland, Elizabeth Phelps Ward, Edward Bellamy, Richard W. Gilder, Mary Mapes Dodge, Frank Dempster Sherman, Donald G. Mitchell, (Ik Marvel😉 Samuel J. Clemens, [sic] (Mark Twain;) Alice French, (Octave Thanet😉 Julia Ward Howe, Agnes Repplier, Brander Matthews, John Burroughs, Helen Grey Cone, Mary E. Wilkins, Grace Denio Litchfield, Helen Campbell, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Hjalmar H. Boyesen, George W. Cable, and Mrs. Burton Harrison.
The Authors’ Volumes were collected by Mr. Oscar S. Straus, and each one has a manuscript letter from the author inserted. The books are as follows: “Put Yourself in His Place,” by Charles Reade; “Transatlantic Sketches,” by Henry James; “Woman’s Reason,” by W.D. Howells; “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” by Bret Harte; “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes; “The [Stolen] White Elephant,” by Mark Twain; “The Colonel’s Daughter,” by Charles King; “Louisiana,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett; “Marjorie Daw,” by Thomas Bailey Aldrich; “Prue and I,” by George William Curtis; “Little Journey in the World,” by Charles Dudley Warner; “Songs in the Sierras,” by Joaquin Miller; “Tent Life in Siberia,” by George Kennan, and “Grandison Mather,” by Sidney Luska. [Note: What would these special volumes be worth today?]
Sam also autographed an aphorism to an unidentified person: A lie well stuck to becomes / History. / Mark Twain. / P.S / A sublime & immortal Fact / is always better than a Valentine. /M.T [MTP].
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam:
Your favor received. I hardly know what to suggest for you to write to General Miles; you would know very much better what to say than I would. It might be well to refer to the fact that I had already written him, enclosing a letter from Colonel Sheridan, suggesting that he put into book form some of his Western experiences,to be published by us….
Hall also heard from Captain Bourke that he’d promised to give first choice of his book (to be called “Crook of the Pacificator”) to Charles Scribner [MTP].
J.K. Hayward wrote from Harriman, Tenn. on East Tennessee Land Co. Letterhead asking for a letter from Sam to read at a bi-monthly literary meeting. Sam wrote on the envelope, “No answer” [MTP].