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.
February 26 Wednesday – William J. Hamersley wrote to Sam that “Paige told me yesterday that you wanted me to try to sell some royalties & I have tried and can do nothing” [MTP].
Daniel Whitford wrote to Sam:
February 25 Tuesday – In a letter to Grace King, Livy wrote that she was just getting well from an attack of Quinzy,” having been in bed for “nearly a week in New York with Mr. Clemens as nurse” [MTNJ 3: 539n175]. She also confided that they had attended the opening of P&P play and found it “a real disappointment…In the main it is poor, and does not in the least do the book, we think, justice” [543-4n184]. Note: Quinsy was their term for tonsillitis.
February 24 Monday – The U.S. Congress approved Chicago over New York as the site of the Columbian Exposition of 1892/3. From the New York Times, Feb. 25, 1890 p.2:
CHICAGO FRANTIC WITH JOY
— — —
PURELY A COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE
WITH NO SPARK OF SENTIMENT.
February 23 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam:
Last night we gave Ma a soapsuds injection, and she was relieved for the first time since last Sunday. Then slept through the night, for the first time in a week or two [MTP].
February 22 Saturday – † On or just after this day Sam sent the Feb. 21 Webster & Co. inquiry about Lounsbury to Twichell: Dear Joe:/ ? / Ys Ever/ Mark./ ~ [MTP].
The Critic reviewed CY:
We do not at all approve of Mark’s performance; it is very naughty indeed: but — and that is all he and his publishers want — we cannot help laughing at it [Tenney 18].
February 21 Friday – Webster & Co. typed a letter to Sam asking, since he knew Joseph Twichell, could he ask what regiment Yale professor Thomas R. Lounsbury was in during the Civil War, and what occupation he held between the war and his time at Yale. They explained that Lounsbury “always declines to give any information about himself,” and that they needed this for volume eleven of The Library of American Literature [MTP].
February 20 Thursday – Orion Clemens finished his Feb. 19 letter to Sam:
Ma coughed nearly all night. Miss Craig soothed her to sleep three times — her longest nap was about an hour. To-day she is not coughing much, her appetite seems to have returned, and she is now (3:15 pm), up, dressed in her velvet, looking natural, and walking around in her room. It looks now as if she will get well [MTP].
Adolfo Ramasso wrote from Rome asking to translate ten of Sam’s sketches into Italian [MTP].
February 19 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Abby Sage Richardson, explaining why he was not able to see her the previous Thursday as he’d told Daniel Frohman that Wednesday. Before the N.Y. trip, Richardson had sent them a breakfast invitation. They’d been unable to attend and they wished to thank her for it; Sam wished to exert his rights to emend the P&P play, and to remind her of the contract.
February 18 Tuesday – Sam and Livy returned to Hartford as planned [Feb. 16 to Crane; Feb. 19 to Richardson].
W. Norris wrote from Civil Prison, Singapore to Sam; a fellow prisoner gave him IA which he read. “I have resolved to send you this letter, and to beg of you to get me out of this prison….I am now short $20,000…” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Wants a loan 20,000”[MTP].