To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day

January 1 Wednesday – Sam went to N.Y.C. and stopped at the Rogers’ home. He “found only one little chappy on deck,” and wrote the following day to wish the family Happy New Year [Jan. 2 to Rogers].

January 1 Friday – Sam read about a Chicago fire disaster in the NY Evening Post [Gribben 503; fragment MTP].

January 1 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam added to his long Dec. 31 letter to Joe Twichell:

Jan. 1’03. The doctor did not stay last night. Just as I was beginning to dress for dinner Livy’s nurse came for me, & I saw the patient 4 minutes. She was in great spirits—like 25 years ago.

She has sent me a New-Year greeting this morning, & has had a good night.

January 10 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Mrs. Rogers, reading See preceding page for result. / Filipine article, 5,000 words. Paid for, Feb. 8,—$1120” [NB 44 TS 3]. Note: the paid-for item likely added later, but may have been the projected date.

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to an unidentified man. “I may have visited the Lake, but I think not. In any case I did no writing there” [MTP].

January 10 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, explaining his grievance against the Boston publisher Small & Maynard, and the letters he’d sent Jan. 9 to the 25 writers to determine which twelve had agreed to be contributors:

The publishers, without my consent, used my name to help advertise a book to which I had neither contributed nor been asked to contribute.

January 10 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mr. Dole (the identical language used in Jan. 9 to Hirsch) declining an invitation and citing Livy’s health [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Frederick W. Peabody.

But aren’t you going to lend me those scraps & scribblings of Mrs. Eddy’s which you offered to lend me? I find I can’t buy such things. I have tried; the Bargain Counter will not take my money—imagines it is spiritual money, but it is not.

January 10 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam finished his Jan. 7 to Joe Twichell.

P. S. 3 days later.

Livy is as remarkable as ever. The I wrote you—that night, I mean—she had a bitter attack of gout or rheumatism occupying the whole left arm from shoulder to fingers, accompanied by fever. The pains racked her 50 or 60 hours; they have departed, now—and already she is planning a trip to Egypt next fall, and a winter’s sojourn there! This is life in her yet.

January 11 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Boudinat Keith 3 or 4 Carnegie Hall” [NB 44 TS 3].

January 11 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a postcard to Ernest Howard Crosby of the New York Anti-Imperialist League, N.Y.C. “Make it 11 a.m. any day, but give me 24 hours’ notice by post, so that I may make no interfering arrangement” [MTP].

January 11 Sunday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam responded to Elisabeth Marbury’s Jan. 10 by writing in the bottom left corner of her letter: “quite willing but must / first know in writing if / Mr. Dillingham is willing. / Communicate with Mr D. & ask him” [MTP].

January 11 Monday – In New York, Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam with payment amounts from Harpers for his financial account, which totaled $10,346.43 [MTHHR 550-1].

January 12 Saturday – Sam met with William Dean Howells as mentioned in his Jan. 13 to Harriet E. Whitmore. See entry.

January 12 Sunday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells after receiving some poetry from Hydesaburo Ohashi, which he evidently enclosed here.

Say—Howells, don’t you want to discover a Japanese poet & introduce him to the public? It seems to me that his lines about the moon are poetry; also that the satire in the closing lines of the first paragraph exhibits a smart & calculated reserve not found every day in a beginner. …

January 12, before – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to David A. Munro for the North American Review.

Private. If McCrackan appears in the March Number, the above blank should be filled with “April.” I think he is commanded from Goddlemightyburg, up there at Concord, to keep out entirely. Have you heard from him, as to his intentions? [MTP].

January 12 Tuesday – In New York, H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam

I have your favor of 30th ult. Miss Harrison is sending you statements of accounts showing receipts from Harper, which I trust will be satisfactory. The explanations will go forward with her letter, so I need not refer to them here. …

I wish I could follow out your suggestion in regard to going to Italy. I am about fagged out again, having been at work since October. My Boston suit is not yet settled, and I go on the rack again on Saturday next.

January 13 Sunday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Mary Nash Hubbard in Hannibal, Mo.

“I remember the wedding very well, although it was 50 years ago; & I wish you & your husband joy of this anniversary of it” [MTP]. Note: Mary was the sister to William H.C. Nash of Hannibal (b. 1829), a childhood friend of Sam’s [MTL 1: 246n4].

January 13 Monday – Joe Twichell sent Sam a “Yale Alumni Association” printed notice about the Jan. 31 dinner. Joe lined through the bottom section which referred to price, and wrote “there’s no exploitation of M.T. in this, you see / Joe” [MTP].

January 13 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon. Wrote for Sam to Franklin G. Whitmore [MTP].

Mr. Clemens tells me to write you that “Mrs. Clemens says to sell the house for any thing you can get for it—”

Mrs. Clemens is making visible progress; her pulse has gone down to 87 and stays there, and Mr. Clemens sees her once a day for ten or fifteen minutes.

Jean is very much better, but is not yet allowed to sit up [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Dr. Rice, 6.16 train” [NB 46 TS 5].

January 14 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Boston, Aldrich ‘Murray Hull [sic Hall]’ has gradually 6 bastards put upon him by the courts—some on no good evidence but his lecherous character” [NB 44 TS 3]. Note: Murray Hall was a woman who masqueraded as a man for over 25 years, married two women, worked tirelessly for Tammany Hall, and generally fooled everyone until her death (at an estimated 70 years of age) on Jan. 16 [NY Times, Jan. 19, 1901, p3. “Murray Hall Fooled Many Shrewd Men.”

January 14 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Edward W. Ordway in N.Y.C. “I only want to write. But that I shall get the time is not likely. I did hope I was going to get it, but that was a dream” [MTP]. Note: Ordway was active in the Anti-Imperialist League and had pulled some sort of vague promise from Sam to write a piece for the cause.

Sam also wrote to Howard E. Wright of the American Plasmon Co.:

January 14 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a note to Livy.

Livy dear, there’s a new effect—the sea has come ashore. Water, blown by the wind is crinkling curves & long lines, is frozen white, & a stretch of it is the slope of the grassy hill gives the aspect of a section of green sea with wimpling white-caps chasing each other over it.

I love you dearheart, I love you dearly. / Y

Rice was lovely, and (as Henry Robinson said about Charley Clark) “as funny as a frog” [LLMT 341].

January 14 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam dictated a note in Italian to daughter Clara for Rev. Raffaello Stiattesi asking his aid in getting the Countess Massiglia to keep her dog quiet, as it was disturbing Livy’s sleep. He offered 100 lire to the church for their good offices [MTP: Superior Auction Galleries catalog, Nov. 6, 1993, Item 144].

January 15 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Why’dn’t you go to hell? There’s no Irish there. / Corey & portraits of Lincoln & Washington. / Won’t you for Christ’s sake pass the butter / Hit him for pie” [NB 44 TS 3]. Note: William Ellis Corey (1866-1934), capitalist and steel executive, who began his career at age sixteen and in 1903 succeeded Charles M. Schwab as president of U.S. Steel 1903-1911.

January 15 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “G.H. Crosby, 11 a m / Go to Mr. Rogers, dinner” [NB 42 TS 2]. Note: This is likely E.H. Crosby, not G.H., (Ernest Howard Crosby) active in the Anti-Imperialist League.

Samuel Lloyd Osbourne (1868-1947) wrote to Sam.

Lambs Club / New York City / Dear Mr. Clemens,

January 15 Thursday – At night in Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a note to Livy:

Ship ahoy! helm-alee! hard aport!—There, steady! let her go off a point!—luff, & bring her to the wind! I’m reading before-the-mast sailor-yarns, dearest, & am full of the salt sea & the great winds & the wonders of the deep. They couldn’t understand me at dinner, they are land-lubbers & ignorant. Sleep well, dearest of the dear—I love you [MTP].

David A. Munro wrote to Sam.