September 3 Friday – In Elmira Sam wrote a short note to Frederick J. Hall about the report of compositors including all the daily newspapers [MTP].
Sam also wrote a short note to Charles Webster, writing at the top, “Give to Charley first thing when he comes.” Webster was on his way back to New York. This note said that Hall couldn’t tell the Kaolatype buyer (Horace King) how much territory was included [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore in Hartford, Sam’s business agent. He thanked him for the statement of his accounts to Sept. 1 and asked that Whitmore tear up the list of Livy’s securities he’d sent, as she’d decided to leave those in the hands of her brother, Charles Langdon, which Sam felt was “good judgment” [MTP].
Sam’s notebook: Through Mr. Hall, have offered Bromfield $325 for the whole work, including the dailies of N.Y. city [MTNJ 3: 253]. Note: P.B. Bromfield, advertising agency, to secure compositor data of U.S. daily newspapers.
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam about the possibility of publishing an expose by George Washington Walling, retired New York police superintendent.
We have just been offered a book which is likely to attract attention. It is written by Ex-Superintendent Walling of the New York Police and Detective force…. In this book, he gives the inside of a great many celebrated cases; for instance: The complete history of Stewart’s body….the Nathan Murder case. It was to have been published by a firm in the City here…but one of the members…brought it here, and said that some of the statements were so strong, that they were afraid it would raise a storm [MTLTP 207n1-2].
September 3–September 14 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook between these entry dates:
Diana of the Xroads — by George Meredith.
Prince Otto, by author of Kidnapped. [Robert Louis Stevenson]
Pay the bill at Fitch’s.
John Bodewin’s Testimony by Mary Hallock Foote. — (if they’ve got it.) — Don’t send for it.
Notes: Sam was probably buying Diana of the Crossways (1885) by Meredith for Livy. Paine writes:
“It was at a time when George Meredith was a reigning literary favorite. There was a Meredith cult as distinct as that of Browning….Mrs. Clemens and her associates were caught in the Meredith movement and read Diana of the Crossways and the Egoist with reverential appreciation. [¶] The Meredith epidemic did not touch Mark Twain. He read but few novels at most, and skilful as was the artistry of the English favorite, he found his characters artificialities — ingeniously contrived puppets rather than human beings….overrated by their creator. Diana of the Crossways was read aloud, and, listening now and then, he was likely to say:”
It doesn’t seem to me that Diana lives up to her reputation. The author keeps telling us how smart she is, how brilliant, but I never seem to hear her say anything smart or brilliant. Read me some of Diana’s smart utterances [MTB 847].
Clara Clemens remembered that when Meredith’s work was read aloud at Quarry Farm, Sam commented that he was too wordy [MFMT 61].
Foote’s work was a romantic novel of the Arkansas silver-mining region in the 1870s (1886). See Gribben 235.
Sam also wrote a note to: Send Molly [Clemens] for Mr. S[totts, her father] $100 Jan 1 ’87, & the same every 4 months thereafter [MTNJ 3: 254].
Note: The amounts were for medical expenses. Mollie’s father, William Stotts, would die in St. Joseph’s Hospital, Keokuk, on June 13, 1888 at age 88. This source describes Stotts as “a pioneer, public official, and popular resident of Keokuk” [n88].