April 4 Wednesday – Sam sponsored and introduced George W. Cable in a program of readings at Unity Hall in Hartford. To ensure a good response, Sam encouraged well-known literary types from New York and Boston to attend [Fatout, MT Speaking 176-7]. In his Apr. 6 letter to New Orleans artist Frances A. Cox, Sam wrote “George W. partially defeated himself night before last by not making a good selection of reading matter…” [MTP]. (See Apr. 5 and Apr. 6 entries.)
Cable read from “Old Creole Days” and his novel The Grandissimes. He wrote to his wife on Apr. 5:
“Poor, dear old Mark Twain! I could see that his wide experience recognized the fact & that he was not satisfied” [Turner, MT & GWC 15].
The Hartford Courant, Apr. 5 p2, reported on Cable’s reading:
When Mr. Cable came forward, and was received with hearty applause, the audience saw a slight, almost boyish figure, with a face of singular purity and refinement, black, laughing eyes, black hair, and a forehead high and fair and indicating thought and seriousness….so absolutely simple that we hesitate to apply the word dramatic to it, and yet the effect was dramatic, as the intense interest with which his sketching was followed by the audience attested.
After the readings there was a “lively supper at the Hartford Club,” including Howells, Twichell, Aldrich, Gilder, and O’Reilly. Fatout: “Of this late party Cable remarked upon an ‘abundance of innocent fun. There were a hundred good things said that I suppose I’ll never remember.’ See Hutton, Talks in a Library: 416-18” [MT Speaking 655].
Cable gave Sam copies of Old Creole Days (1879), The Grandissimes. A Story of Creole Life (1880) , and Madame Dephine (1881); and inscribed them: “To S. L. Clemens. Yours truly, G. W. Cable, Hartford, Apl 4, 1883” [Gribben 123].
Charles Ethan Porter wrote from Paris to Sam & Livy—a begging letter for funds [MTP]. Note: Porter was the black artist that Sam had helped before.
Jenny Sharples wrote from Lancashire, England, sending a handkerchief she’d embroidered for him, to thank him for the autographed letter sent some time before [MTP].