April 25 Saturday – Sam received a letter from J.B. Clapp, secretary of the Blodgett & Clapp Co. an iron and steel merchant of Hartford.
“I was unfortunately ran into by your carriage and my own carriage somewhat injured. The carriage I have placed in the Hospital & trust it will soon be convalescent. The Doctors bill I presume you will see in due course of time” [MTNJ 3: 138-9n42]. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Ha-ha!”
April 27 Monday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to George Iles, Montreal editor:
“I hope to live to see you swing your scepter by & by, in accordance with that plan we talked of” [MTP]. Note: The “plan” is not identified. Sam may have left for New York this day or early the next.
April 28 Tuesday – Sam, Livy, and thirteen-year-old Susy Clemens went to New York for a four-day outing, which included a reading up at Vassar in Poughkeepsie on May 1. Sam conferred with Webster and General Grant and gave a reading on Apr. 29 [MTNJ 3: 140n48].
April 29 Wednesday – Sam gave a reading on this second day at Madison Square Theater, Author’s Reading given for the Longfellow Memorial, an entertainment managed by George Parsons Lathrop (1851-1898). Charles Eliot Norton introduced the readers [MTB 817]. Note: Paine mistakenly identifies this event as “early May.”
April 30 Thursday – From Susy Clemens’ unfinished biography (her spelling):
…mamma planned to take the four-o’clock car back to Hartford. We rose quite early that morning and went to the Vienna Bakery and took breakfast there. From there we went to a German bookstore and bought some German books for Clara’s birthday.
May – Sam’s article “What Ought he to Have Done?” ran in the May issue of Babyhood [Lou Budd’s list furnished by Thomas Tenney and citing Branch]. Note: this piece also ran in The Christian Union, July 16, 1885 [Camfield, bibliog.]. It was also reprinted in the July 21 Courant as “Mark Twain on the Government of Children.” Susy Clemens reported that upon reading the piece, Livy was “shocked an
May 1 Friday – Sam spoke at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, for their Founder’s Day, reading the popular “Trying Situation” and “Golden Arm” [Fatout, MT Speaking 656].
From Susy’s unfinished biography (her spelling):
May 2 Saturday – From Susy’s unfinished biography:
The next morning we rose early, took an early train for Hartford and reached Hartford at ½ past 2 o’clock. We were very glad to get back [MTA 2: 171].
May 3 Sunday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Charles Webster. He’d “watched closely” and had “not seen a single reference to the World’s lie in any newspaper” (The New York World’s lie about Grant—see Apr. 30 entry). He realized that if no other papers copied the report, that suing them would only give “that daily issue of unmedicated closet-paper” publicity.
May 4 Monday – James Redpath wrote to arrange a meeting in NYC. “If you are to be down on a Thursday I wish to take you to the Twilight Club”. He offered several other plans [MTP]. Note: this is clearly a reply to a non-extant letter by Clemens.
May 5 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Orion, enclosing a letter from a relative he had “no shred of remembrance of. …maybe you & Ma may like to read her letter. All well & send love” [MTP]. Note: see Apr. 24: Clemma L. Bradley (nee Lampton) from McKinney, Texas.
May 6 Wednesday – Ulysses S. Grant wrote to Adam Badeau, saying “you and I must give up all association so far as the preparation for any literary work goes which bears my signature.” Sam was fully behind Grant’s action [Perry 200]. Sam and Grant knew that Badeau had likely planted the story in the New York World claiming that Grant’s book was written by a ghost-writer. Perry claims Mark Twain was that ghost-writer [202].
May 7 and 9 Saturday – The Boston Herald ran an article publicizing Sam’s complaints against George W. Cable in their recent reading tour, “Personal Peculiarities of a Well Known Author.” Sam remained silent on these accusations of stinginess and inconvenience caused to others as a result of Cable’s refusal to travel on Sundays. It wasn’t until ten years later that Sam came out against such claims, which Fatout asserts were generated by Sam’s talk with others [Circuit 228-31].
May 10 Sunday – In the wake of the rumor in the New York World, Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, admonishing him to “write nothing in any private letter to friend, relative, or anybody, which you do not want published.” Sam felt he’d been burned “so often, in my own experience, that I feel like warning & saving” Webster [MTP].
May 11 Monday – Karl Gerhardt wrote twice, one to Sam & one to Sam & Livy, about medallions, his need for a small office, and his circular (on the back of the letters) for the Grant busts: (twice, one to Sam only). His second letter added that James B. Pond had offered a part of his office; Pond suggested a terra cotta bust of Henry Ward Beecher [MTP].
May 13 Wednesday – Sam notified Edward M. Bunce, Henry C. Robinson, and other Friday night billiard players that he was moving up their gathering to the next day, Thursday, May 14, in order to attend a lecture by Chauncey M. Depew (1834-1928) at the Opera House in Hartford on Friday [MTP]. Depew was a Yale-educated lawyer and businessman who later served as a U.S.
May 14 Thursday – Newspapers were reporting grossly inaccurate earnings for Sam and Cable from the reading tour—The Boston Transcript and the Boston Evening Journal claimed the tour had netted Sam “nearly $35,000.” On May 17, the New York World also claimed that amount for Sam, and an equal number for Cable [Cardwell 11]. The actual amounts were much less—see Feb. 28 entry.
May 15 Friday – Sam attended Chauncey M. Depew’s talk on “Poetry and Politics in the British Isles” at the Opera House in Hartford. Governor Henry B. Harrison (1821-1901) was in attendance. Sam and Joseph R. Hawley and other dignitaries sat on the lecture platform.
May 16 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Orion that the family would leave for Elmira the fifteenth of June. Marked “private” Sam praised Charles Webster and noted General Grant’s high regard for him.
Charley has tackled the vastest book-enterprise the world has ever seen, with a calm cool head & a capable hand, & is carrying it along in a serene unhalting fashion which is fine to see. All well, —love to all [MTP].
May 17 Sunday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to George W. Cable, who wrote and telegraphed the day before, upset at things he was reading in the papers. Sam assured him that they were the “slanders of a professional newspaper liar,” and that “this thing did not distress” him “for one single half of a half of a hundreth part of a second” [MTP]. The source of Cable’s upset? From Turner’s biography of Cable:
May 18 Monday – Sam probably went to New York City as referenced by his May 17 telegram to Webster [MTP]. (No other documentation found; no letters published for May 18 to May 19.)
May 19 Tuesday – Jane Clemens wrote to Sam & Livy about the weather, not getting out much, good neighbors, her new set of teeth, and asked Jean to tell her how the stockings fit [MTP].
May 20 Wednesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Charles Webster. Progress had been made on the Paige typesetter; a big test was in the offing. Sam was ready to sign a contract:
May 21 Thursday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam & Livy: great hopes for Josie’s getting well; more about the Grant busts—he offered to sell “outright my share of royalty in Grant bust (Terra Cotta) for $10,000…and cancellation of indebtedness to you, reserving the right to withdraw this proposition after June 15, 1885, is that fair?” [MTP].
May 22 Friday – Sam typed a letter from Hartford to Orion in Keokuk, Iowa, admonishing him not to send “any letter from the Gogginses or anybody else,” that he had no “interest in relatives born to me,” due to the fact that such interest required correspondence.
CORRESPONDENCE IS THE CURSE AND BANE OF MY LIFE, AND I CAN’T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF YOUR DIGGING UP RELATIVES GRATUITOUSLY TO ADD TO IT.