September 16 Saturday – Sam declined another invitation, the Sept. 15 from William A. Seaver, who wrote the “Editor’s Drawer” and the “Personal” column for Harper’s. Seaver was “one of the New York boys.”
“My Dear Boy, I can’t. You know me; you know I travel with none but the salt of the earth—never with old salts of the sea, like you. Besides, these parties drink, whom you mention. Therefore there might not be enough for me” [MTLE 1: 115].
September 20 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Warren Stoddard, his personal secretary on the first trip to England. Stoddard had written to ask if Sam or his publisher could publish a book of his. Sam advised Stoddard to write to him or Howells and say he wanted a consulship somewhere. Sam reasoned that Hayes would win the election, and since Mrs.
September 21 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, promoting Charles Warren Stoddard for a consulship, something Sam expressed was the only thing the man was good for. Sam knew that Hayes would win because of Orion’s “desertion” of the Republican Party. Orion’s choice made:
September 22 Friday – In Pepperell, Mass., Howells wrote, agreeing to Sam’s idea of promoting Stoddard, adding, “C.W.S. shall be inspector of consulates. He’s in too good repair for a resident consul. Epilepsy or softening of the brain is requisite: a game arm will not do.” (Stoddard had badly broken his arm falling from a horse in Feb. 1875.) Howells wrote he had a “long letter to write you from Cambridge” [MTHL 1: 155].
September 24 Sunday – Gertrude Kellogg wrote to thank Sam for his help “in speaking a good word for me to the Bureau people in Boston, as I have heard you did” [MTPO]. Notes from source: Kellogg had won critical praise in 1874 as Laura Hawkins in the original New York production of Clemens’s Gilded Age play, Colonel Sellers and was returning to the stage.
September 25 Monday – Henry W. Shaw (Josh Billings) wrote a note from NYC. He advised sending Sam one of his books: Josh Billings: His Works, Complete. If Sam should “be seized with a longing to say something tender” then Shaw would be very much pleased. In the book he wrote this inscription:
September 27 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John and Alice Hooker Day that he and Livy would be happy to see them on “Friday evening from 7 till 11” [MTLE 1: 119]. Note: Sam & Livy had attended the 1869 Hooker-Day wedding in New York. This note from MTPO:
September 29 Friday – In the evening, Sam and Livy entertained Hartford friends in their “big, long talked of party,” that “went off well.” (See Sept. 27 entry.)
Peter Henderson, Seedsman and Florist, New York City receipted $2.50 [MTP].
September 30 Saturday – Following a noisy torchlight parade with a band and Civil War veteran marchers, Sam gave his first political speech. He spoke for Rutherford B. Hayes at Allyn Hall in Hartford. Though the city was Republican, there was some mud-slinging by supporters of Tilden.
October – The German edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published in Leipzig by F.W. Grunow [Norton, Writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 90].
October 2 Monday – The Hartford Evening Post ran Sam’s speech of Sept. 30 on page two, “Just Before the Battle.”
October 4 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam responded with a short note to William Seaver’s request for a miscellaneous article, probably for Harper’s. Sam wrote, “I can’t, old man—am too busy” [MTLE 1: 122]. Sam began collaborating with Bret Harte for a stage play, Ah Sin [MTLE 1: 124].
October 5 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short letter to his attorney, Charles E. Perkins, enclosing a piece of plagiarism that was:
“…made up of paragraphs taken bodily from my various books, & idiotically strung together upon the thin thread of a silly love tale.” Should Sam go to the expense of an injunction? [MTLE 1: 123].
October 7 Saturday – Bill paid to Paul Thompson for straw, etc. delivered Sept. 30. $14.60 [MTP].
October 8 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam. He liked the idea of the “blind novelettes,” (see Oct. 12 entry) and his owners were “crazy over it,” though he saw difficulties in persuading people to write them. He confessed the failure of the bio he’d done on Hayes, and “bills continue to come in with unabated fierceness.” He also praised Sam’s Sept.
October 10 Tuesday – Sam completed the plot for his contribution to Ah Sin, a collaboration with Bret Harte for a stage play [MTLE 1: 124].
October 11 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, covering a lot of ground. First, Sam didn’t think he’d be able to do anything for the January Atlantic issue. He’d spent the whole day “clearing off a fortnight’s accumulating correspondence,” and would take it out on Howells. Sam wrote about the collaboration with Bret Harte in writing a play.
October 12 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells about his “blind novelette” idea. His scheme was to write a plot of his own design and hand it out to other noted writers, each writing his own version of the story. Howells would publish all of the versions in the Atlantic. The other writers resisted the idea, and Sam concluded that they were intimidated to follow his lead.
October 14 Saturday – Twichell’s journal:
“Walked to Farmington and back with M.T. and C.D.W. [Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner] —a most delightful day. The delicious grapes at Mrs Whitmore’s, lunched at Mr. Gray’s and called on Miss Mary Perkins at Miss Porter’s school” [Yale, copy at MTP].
This entry of Twichell’s fits the day Sam went to hear Georgia Cayvan speak, though Twichell does not mention her. In his Nov. 20, 1906 A.D. Sam recalled Miss Cayvan after reading of her death:
October 16 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to his attorney, Charles E. Perkins about the preparation of a list of taxable items for the Hartford tax assessors [MTLE 1: 129].
October 17 Tuesday ca. – Xantippe (“Tip”) Saunders wrote to Sam (not extant) but referred to by Sam in his Oct. 19 reply [Oct. 19 to Saunders].
October 18 Wednesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam about “putting the Atlantic people up to a little enterprise,” –the publication of “one-number stories from the Atlantic” [MTHL 1: 161].
October 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his cousin Mary Ann Pamelia Xantippe “Tip” Saunders (1838-1922), who was born in Kentucky and studied art in New York. She was the first listing for “artist” in the 1874 Louisville phone book, and later ran an art school there. Tip had written asking to visit. Tip was the daughter of Ann Hancock Saunders, half-sister of John Marshall Clemens.
October 20 Friday – Sam sent his attorney, Charles E. Perkins, a postcard advising him of the receipt of “the Philadelphia checks for $1000 & $514” [MTLE 1: 132].
October 22 Sunday – The NY Sun, p. 4, ran what Budd calls “A comic, spurious interview” with Sam titled, “Mark Twain / An Extract from a Private Letter to a Gentleman of This City” [Interviews 1].