October 17 Tuesday – In Vaud, Switzerland, Howells wrote to Sam:
“What you want to do is pack up your family, and come to Florence for the winter….We are having a good, dull, wholesome time in this little pension on the shore of Lake Leman, within gunshot of the Castle of Chillon; but a thousand jokes rot in my breast every day for want of companionship” [MTHL 1: 415].
R.O. Dienwis wrote a postcard from Kings Ferry, Fla., with a non-sensical message [MTP].
October 17 Wednesday – Howells responded to Sam’s Oct. 15 letter, agreeing that Sam’s terms were “good and just.” He added that Colonel Sellers had “a great play in him yet” [MTHL 1: 446].
October 17 Friday – In Hartford, Sam responded to Howells’ Oct. 16 letter:
Yes, give Osgood the MS—I haven’t the least objection. I am about half glad that Laffan beat him at billiards the other day, because he promised to stop over here & play with me, & didn’t do it.
By George, the refreshment & rest there is in a change of air & scenery once in a while! I am to preside at a Mugwump meeting Monday night. / Yrs Ever / Mark [MTP].
October 17 Saturday – The New York Times reported under “Personal Intelligence” p.2, that Sam was in New York staying at the Hotel Normandie. If true, Sam may have accompanied the Conways to the city after their Hartford visit, since Moncure’s son was practicing law in New York. Sam was back in Hartford on Oct. 18.
October 17 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Webster & Co., “we do not want the book of Gems at any price,” (as proposed by G.F. Kunz, gem expert at Tiffany’s) He also asked what arrangement had been made on the Baltimore art book proposed by William Thompson Walters) with William Mackay Laffan, adding that Laffan was “going away” [MTLTP 236]. (See Sept.
October 17 Wednesday – Orion Clemens wrote three letters this date to Sam, all about a house for sale which he hoped to buy for $3,500 and to ask his opinion [MTP].
October 17 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote reporting on the proofs of CY, and telling Sam what he probably already knew:
This last batch, about the King’s and the Boss’s adventures, is all good; and it’s every kind of a delightful book. Passages in it do my whole soul good. — I suppose the Church will get after you; and I think it’s a pity that you don’t let us see how whenever Christ himself could get a chance, all possible good was done [MTHL 2: 614].
October 17 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James B. Pond, who’d asked about the P&P play controversy:
There are two Prince & Pauper plays — one in the hands of a pirate [House], the other in the hands of a person who is the same thing without the name [Frohman]. God be thanked I have no influence with either [MTP].
Henry Ware Alley wrote urging Sam to send his views on the Single Tax to The Standard [MTP].
October 18 Monday – Howells wrote from Belmont to Sam about George Gebbie’s attempt at a “Library of Humor,” about seeing Edward House at the Houghton lunch that day, and praised Sam for his speech introducing Grant in Hartford on Oct. 16 [MTHL 1: 330-1].
October 18 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. All of Sam’s prior investment losses in inventions would pale next to the Paige typesetter debacle, which he wrote about:
Mr. Wm. Hammersley, [Hamersley] our City Attorney, will call on you at your Engraving office, at 10 o’clock Thursday morning.
October 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood:
“I am sending Webster to talk with you. I would like him to take pretty full charge of the matter of running the book, if this will disadvantage you in no way.”
This is seen as Sam’s “first step in CLW’s eventual career as MT’s publisher” [MTLTP 158-9 & n1]. Also in the works was “A Handbook of Etiquette,” planned as a trade book (never published), and much later, “Mark Twain’s Cyclopedia of Humor."
October 18 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. He thought the game board was “excellent” and suggested “one possible improvement” dealing with the dates of several reigns. He directed a “few copies” to be printed, “25 is plenty—& keep several for you & Annie to experiment with.” Sam was waiting for the right timing to “contract with Bliss for the new book” [MTP].
October 18 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Fuller:
Dear Governor—
I changed publishers once—and just as sure as death and taxes I never will again.
‘Rah for Cleveland! [MTP].
Critic ran an unsigned article about Gerhardt’s bust of Sam, “Mark Twain in Bronze,” which included a description of the work by Charles Dudley Warner [Tenney].
October 18 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford, answering Howells’ letter of Oct. 16. Howells had rejected Ticknor’s offer to become his publisher, and through Charles Fairchild’s efforts came to an agreement with Harper’s which would pay him a $10,000 per year salary for the serial rights to a yearly 300-page novel, plus other income for articles and a column.
October 18 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Edward H. House, who evidently missed seeing Sam on the prior Tuesday trip to New York and had written asking questions (no recent letter from House is extant).
O yes, there was a Tuesday, but it failed to connect — as I explained to you.
No, sir, Stoddard didn’t borrow “The Brahman’s Son” from your story.
October 18 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
Tuesday, a.m., Oct. 18, 1887, Paige showed me (& Whitmore, North, Earl, & two or three others,) and experiment with his new dynamo & motor, to prove that one of the laws laid down in the electrical books is not a law at all. He thinks it a great discovery that he has thus made; & proposes to apply it in a machine which shall show surprising results.
October 18 Friday – Susan L. Crane wrote to Sam, having received this evening five royalties on the Paige typesetter; it seemed “very tame” for her to simply say “thank you.” She continued to say it for six pages [MTP].
October 18 Saturday – William J. Bok for The Bok Syndicate Press, N.Y. wrote to Sam:
“May I not be favored with your literary plans for the balance of the Autumn and the coming Winter? ….Allow me to enclose one of our recent literary letters” [MTP].
George E. Chase wrote from Philadelphia to ask Sam if he would consider the Single Tax [MTP].
J. Hagerty for Hagerty & Sons, Burlington, Iowa wrote asking Sam to use the Single Tax as the basis for a book [MTP].
October – Catherine (Katy) Leary (1856?-1934) was hired as Livy’s personal maid. She stayed with the family until 1910 [MTNJ 2: 396n136].
October – On a Saturday, Sam spoke on “mental telegraphy” as a guest of William D. Whitney, a Yale professor, at Whitney’s home in New Haven. Sam gave his talk at a meeting of the New Haven Saturday Morning Club, a young ladies’ social and cultural group much like Hartford’s. Whitney’s daughter, Marian, was twenty [MTNJ 2: 359n12].
October – “American Literary Portraits / Mark Twain” ran in the Oct. issue of The Ideal Monthly Magazine, p.8-10. Not everyone was enamored of Sam:
“To him there is nothing sacred….At times he is so coarse he is not fit for polite society…has nothing, absolutely nothing, to redeem his coarseness, his irreverence, his want of refinement” [Tenney, MTJ, Spring 2004 p4].
October – Sam copied (in German) the last six stanzas of Moritz Ernest Arndt’s (1769-1860) song, “Das Lied vom Feldmarschall” (1813) into his notebook [Gribben 27].
October, early – Thomas and Candace Wheeler returned the visit to the Clemenses in Hartford, who for a “lark” went with the Sages in late August to Onteora near Tannersville, New York [MTNJ 3: 178n2]. Dora Wheeler, daughter, drew a flower in Sam’s notebook during this stay. Sam drew another flower on the opposing page and labeled hers “Marsh-mallow By Dora Wheeler” [MTNJ 3: 221].
October – Sam’s notebook: Eliz Cady Stanton & daughter gone to Europe to write “Woman’s Version of the Bible” [MTNJ 3: 261]
October – about this month Sam telegraphed Alfred P. Burbank:
Dear Sir:
Go to Sheol.
Yours Truly.
P.S. No, don’t do it. Go to the other place. My future is uncertain & If the worst comes to the worst, it will be an alleviation to know that it isn’t as bad as it could have been, anyway [MTP].
Sam also wrote Francis Pratt a long complaint about the contract with Pratt & Whitney about lagging work schedules: