March 4 Thursday –Orion Clemens wrote to Sam about $100 sent to their Ma:
I told her you had sent her $100, and now she might get her lower teeth. But she said no. She has a badly fitting metal set, for which she lately paid $15, and the idea of so soon paying $20 to a better dentist for a rubber set is not to be entertained, though she mostly carries her lower teeth in her pocket.
Mollie Clemens included a letter with Orion’s, telling about their mother’s ups and downs:
March 6 Saturday – Kate Field wrote to Sam from the Victoria Hotel in N.Y. She began by saying she’d heard he didn’t think much of her due to her lectures against Mormonism, but ended by asking if he’d be interested in publishing a history of Mormonism [MTP].
March 7 Sunday –George E. Waring wrote to Sam, returning one copy of Ambulinia, or Samuel Watson Royston’s The Enemy Conquered (see Gribben 593) [MTP].
March 8 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Kate Field, answering her Mar. 6 letter about a book disclaiming Mormonism and polygamy.
March 9 Tuesday –Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Sam: “Let’s have that little paper on the Knights of Labor! Please.” Sam wrote on the envelope: “Gilder wants ‘Knights’ Welch 86” [MTP]. Note: Gilder was the editor-in-chief of Century Magazine. See Mar. 22.
March 10 Wednesday –Mary Mason Fairbanks wrote to Sam of “financial disaster,” of being forced to lose their Cleveland home, of her son leaving for New York and of her “almost” losing heart sometimes. Her letter discloses a recent visit to the Clemens’ home, dates not specified [MTP].
March 11 Thursday –Laurence Hutton wrote from N.Y. to Sam of Anna Fitch’s play, thinking that “something might be made of it.” The Hutton’s had visited Hartford recently:
March 12 Friday – This from the New York Times p.3:
THE POPE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
MEMOIRS OF LEO XIII TO BE ISSUED
SOME TIME IN 1887
March 13 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam (Mollie added her letter on Mar. 17). He wrote about returning a check and of their mother’s finances, which were adequate. He wrote of Jane’s love of singing and dancing “(not ballet dancing). If there are no minstrels in heaven she will leave.” Mollie began a letter she finished on Mar. 17, mostly of Ma:
March 14 Sunday – Mollie Clemens finished her Mar. 13 letter to Sam.
Sunday P.M. Ma was quite weak this A.M. Could not come down to breakfast. Seemed afraid we would send for the Dr. But before noon she was better dressed in her velvet and came down to dinner. We were sitting in the parlor reading a half hour ago. She looked up and asked what time we were going home [MTP].
From Susy Clemens’ diary:
March 16 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Warren Stoddard, praising his latest work, The Lepers of Molokai (1885), which described the efforts of Joseph Damien de Veuster (1840-1889), known as “Father Damien” [MTP; Gribben 667]. Due to health problems, Stoddard had recently resigned his position as chair of English literature at the University of Notre Dame.
March 17 Wednesday – In Washington, D.C., William Dean Howells wrote to Sam. The Howells family was there for Winny Howells’ health. He enclosed a newspaper clipping, now lost, “presumably about a revivalist preacher” [MTHL 2: 551n1].
Here is a man in this paper letting himself loose on the neighbors in a way that I thought you’d like to see. Please keep it for me.
March 19 Friday – Susy Clemens’ fourteenth birthday. From Susy Clemens’ diary entry of Mar. 23:
The other day was my birthday, and I had a little birthday parting in the evening and papa acted some very funny Charades, with Mr. Gherhardt, Mr. Jesse Grant (who had come up from New York and was spending the evening with us), — and Mr. Frank Warner. — One of them was “on his knees” honys-sneeze.
There were a good many other funny ones, all, of which I don’t remember.
March 20 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam, firmly against allowing a reduced share of Webster & Co. To allow Jesse Grant into the firm:
I would go very slow about taking in new partners. I don’t want to part with any of my interest but if you wish to sell any of yours I have no objection to the Grant boys, but they should have nothing to say about the conduct of the business [MTNJ 3: 220n111].
March 21 Sunday – From Susy Clemens’ diary:
Sunday — Here is another of papa’s stories told to me by Jean:
“The Generous Fender”
March 22 Monday – Sam presented a paper titled “Knights of Labor — The New Dynasty” to the Monday Evening Club. This was Sam’s tenth presentation to the Club since his election in 1873 [Monday Evening Club]. See Budd, Collected p.883-90. Also listed in Camfield, isterin. It wasn’t published until 1957, edited by Bernard DeVoto, in the New England Quarterly, XXX p.383-88.
March 23 Tuesday – Sam went New York for a meeting Charles Webster and Jesse Grant at the Normandie Hotel the next morning [Mar. 19 to Webster, MTP; N.Y. Times, Mar. 24 p.2 “Personal Intelligence”]. Other business and/or pleasure was on his docket, as he spent three days in the City. This trip may be the occasion which Susy referred to in her unfinished biography of her father.
March 24 Wednesday – At the Normandie Hotel in New York, Sam met in the morning with Charles Webster; later with Jesse Grant who was negotiating to gain part ownership in Webster & Co. [Mar. 19 to Webster].
March 25 Thursday – Sam continued his business stop in New York City.
A typesetting tournament began in Philadelphia on Mar. 16. Sam made an entry in his notebook on this day’s results for Joseph McCann of the New York Herald, and William C. Barnes of the New York World [MTNJ 3: 223]. See Mar. 27 entry for results.
March 26 Friday – In New York, Sam wrote on Webster & Co. Letterhead to Mrs. Henry G. Allen. [MTP: Paraphrased from Charles Hamilton catalogs, Jan. 21, 1982, No. 143 Item 54].
The outside of your kind letter had such a business-like aspect that I handed it (without opening it) to a clerk to be answered. But there are some things which even the ablest clerk can’t do & this turned out to be one of them…”[MTP]
March 27 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster about complaints against the Hartford canvasser of his books who lived in Thompsonville — “canvassing invisible.” And about Frederick Grant:
I don’t quite know what kind of an offer I can make…but I am keeping the thing in my slow mind, & when it crystallized I will report [MTP].
March 28 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote acknowledging receipt the day before of check, “$100 for me, $50 for Ma, and $5 for Puss [Quarles].” Ma had taken them to the theater twice, total cost $8.25; he collected $8 interest for Ma; he supposed Pamela Moffett had left S.F. the day before; he added a PS: “I wrote forthwith to the Cincinnati woman,” whose identity is not given [MTP].
March 30 Tuesday – In the evening Sam attended the Asylum Hill Congregational Church benefit for Joe Twichell, which included the sale of pews. Sam’s pew was also for sale at $150. See Mar. 25 from Hubbard.
General Wesley Merritt for West Point wrote to Sam:
April – Sam wrote a sketch named “Luck” about a military officer whose stupidity results in success and fame. It was not published until 1891 in Harper’s Monthly Magazine [MTNJ 3: 226]. From the Mark Twain Encyclopedia, Craig Albin contributor:
April 2 Friday – Pamela Moffett arrived in Keokuk for a visit. She wrote, “Orion looks somewhat older but Ma and Mollie look about the same” [MTP; Moffett to her son, Apr. 2].