Rescued by Rogers: DBD

December 3 Sunday – Sam started at 11:45 a.m. for a noon “breakfast engagement” at the home of Judge Charles H. Truax, 1992 Madison Ave. He arrived late, but “Nobody was surprised.” The meal was not served until 3 p.m. He had to leave at 5 p.m. in order to make a dinner engagement with William Dean Howells at his apartment, 40 West 59th St., some 110 blocks away, “22 miles in snow & slush!” [MTHL 2: 655n1; Dec. 4 to Livy].

December 30 Saturday – In New York at 1.p.m. Sam wrote a short note to H.H. Rogers, asking if Henry G. Newton accepted (for his client Charles R. North) wouldn’t it be “judicious” to get it in writing? Sam emphasized this was only a suggestion to Rogers, who undoubtedly was much wiser in business, “from one accustomed to teach his grandmother how to suck eggs” [MTHHR 31].

December 31 Sunday – On Players Club letterhead Sam wrote a short note thanking Curtis Bell.

I am very glad to foster & increase our kind of crime, & so I do the thing which you suggest [MTP].

Sam also wrote responding to a request for a photograph from Mr. Moskovitz. He thanked the man for his kind letter but hadn’t a photo “on the place.” They were probably with his family in Paris [MTP]. Note: this may have been Moritz Moskowski, Clara’s piano teacher in Berlin.

December 4 Monday – In New York Sam wrote two letters to Livy; the second with a paragraph to daughter Jean. In the first letter he opened with reassurance of his love, and apologized should he “bust out into momentary impatiences.” That he had written anything which made her cry caused him pain; he would try his “best not to do so again.” He referred to “that miserable business of Clara’s going to Berlin,” and saw “no other way” but for her to stay with Livy for the time being.

December 5 Tuesday – In New York, at the Players Club, Sam read Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s An Old Town by the Sea (1893), which commemorated Aldrich’s birthplace of Portsmouth, N.H. Sam finished the book at 3 a.m. the next morning [Gribben 17; Dec. 6 to Aldrich].

December 6 Wednesday – In New York Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich after staying up half the night reading An Old Town by the Sea.

If I had written you last night when I began the book, I should have written breezily and maybe hilariously; but by the time I had finished it, at 3 in the morning, it had worked its spell & Portsmouth was become the town of my boyhood — with all which implies & compels: the bringing back of one’s youth, almost the only time of life worth living over again…[MTP].

December 7 Thursday – In New York in the afternoon the “several interests” of the typesetter “met face to face for the first time.” Towner K. Webster and his lawyer represented the Chicago interests, “the two Knevals represented the” Connecticut Co., Henry H. Rogers, and Sam, who wrote to Livy of the meeting the next day (Dec. 8):

December 8 Friday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy, telling about the prior day’s conference with interests of the type-setter, and of a 4 p.m. reconvening later this day, after Henry H. Rogers held a private meeting with him before the meeting.

The object of this [meeting with Rogers] may be to advise me as to how much stock to stand out for, in exchange for my royalties. And also as to how many royalties to refuse to give up. He wants all other royalties absorbed, if it be possible, but not all of mine.

December 9 Saturday – In New York at 9 a.m. the final meeting of all the interests (without Paige)in the typesetter took place. The group broke for lunch and met again at 3 p.m. Sam wrote to Livy relating the prior day’s meeting and this day’s:

February 1 Thursday – At 2:15 p.m. in New York Sam cabled Livy:

A ship visible on the horizon coming down under a cloud of canvas [MTHHR 20]. Note: As he wrote in his notebook, “The great Paige Compositor Scheme consummated” [NB 33 TS 53].

February 10 Saturday – In New York in the evening, Sam wrote “half a dozen aphorisms (in the rough)” [Feb. 11 to Livy].

Orion and Mollie Clemens finished their Feb. 8 letter, Mollie being too ill to add much [MTP].

February 11 Sunday – In New York at the Players Club Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, responding to his new book, and a “charming invitation.” Sam wrote about his “great big anonymous historical romance,” on which he’d already written 93,000 words, and only a third of the book (Joan of Arc).

February 12 Monday – In New York Sam continued his Feb. 11 to Livy, which he finished on Feb. 13. He told of the Jan. 29 reception by the Kindergarten Association. See that entry for part of Sam’s letter.

Sam also responded on Players Club stationery to a request by James B. Pond (not extant): “the gods are against it,” he wrote; he’d sail for Europe three weeks from this day, or Monday, March 5 [MTP].

Sam’s notebook:

February 13 Tuesday – At 1 a.m. in New York, Sam finished the multi-part letter to Livy he began on Feb. 11. The broker from Elmira with whom Sam wanted to sell stock in the new Paige company, J.M. Shoemaker, was thought to be blocked by a snowstorm which began at noon on Feb. 12. H.H. Rogers had invited Sam to dinner (on Feb. 12) and offered to keep posted by telephone on Shoemaker’s arrival at the Players Club, and also to be on hand should there be problems in the trade.

February 14 Wednesday – J.M. Shoemaker arrived in New York. Sam wrote of a meeting between himself, H.H. Rogers and Shoemaker on this day:

February 15 Thursday – At 11:30 p.m. at the New York Players Club, Sam wrote another long letter to Livy. Near the end he outlined the day’s activities:

It has been a mighty busy day. I had myself called at 9. At 10 I was down at Mr. Rogers’s office.

Samuel Clemens, H.H. Rogers, and J.M. Shoemaker met again to plan the sale of stock in the new Illinois company, the Paige Compositor Co. 

February 16 Friday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.:

Feb. 16. An ostensible gentleman sat at table in the grill room this morning & struggled with the excrement in his head, trying to cough it out, bark it out, snort it out, snuffle it out, hawk it out, till I was so sick that I was obliged to ask him if he wouldn’t please go to the privy & finish [NB 33 TS 56].

February 17 Saturday – In New York Sam responded to a note of invitation from Helena de Kay Gilder (Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder). He’d not answered sooner because he anticipated seeing her the previous night, and was “at work nearly all night the night before [Feb. 15] on a gigantic letter to Mrs. Clemens.” Evidently, the event he was invited to was past, as he ended wishing he might have “better luck next time” [MTP].

February 18 Sunday – The New York Times, p.2 “City and Vicinity” announced that “Mark Twain” and James Whitcomb Riley would give readings in Madison Square Garden on the evenings of Feb. 26 and 27.

In the evening in New York on Players Club stationery, Sam answered an invitation to breakfast (not extant) from Frank Fuller. Yes, he changed his program each time he gave it but didn’t know whether James Whitcomb Riley did or not; he hadn’t seen Riley.

February ca. – Sam wrote, likely from New York, to decline an invitation to be present for the 400th anniversary of the founding of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. The school was founded in Feb. 1495 [MTP].

February – Sometime during the month in New York, Sam responded on Players Club stationery to William H. Rideing’s Jan. 23 request for an essay for Youth’s Companion.

February 19 Monday – In Paris, Livy cabled Sam that daughter Susy was better [Feb. 20 to Livy]. Frederick J. Hall located the lost MS, “In Defense of Harriet Shelley,” [Feb. 20 to Livy] which Paine calls “one of the very best of his essays” [MTLP 590]. See also MTB 988. Note: North American Review would publish the essay in July 1894.

February 2 Friday – Sam and Livy’s 24th Wedding Anniversary. Early in the year, possibly at or after Feb. 2, as he and Livy began their 25th year of marriage, Sam wrote in his notebook:

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century [MT NB, ed. Paine p.235].

February 20 Tuesday – In New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote to Livy. The first part of the letter is lost. What remains opens with notes about a conference with Rogers:

He is fast coming to the opinion that I had better assume the debts & close up the concern [Webster & Co.] & turn over my own books to the Century Co on the best terms I can get. They want my books badly, but don’t value any of the others.

February 21 Wednesday – In New York at the Players Club Sam’s wakeup call came at 8 a.m. He’d packed his valise before going to bed so had nothing to do except have coffee and shave. He went to the station and met Mrs. Annie Rogers with her sister and brother-in-law the Grinnells.

February 22 Thursday – In Fairhaven Mass., Sam was up at 9 a.m. had breakfast, and “superintended a while” in the setup for the dedication ceremony. He then rested until noon while H.H. Rogers worked to complete the preparations.

At 1 o’clock he [Rogers] went to his mother’s house (she is in her 84th year, & took her to the hall ahead of the crowd; the family left here for the hall at 1.30, & Mr. Rogers & I walked down at near 2. The place was crammed, of course.