November 16 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to the Clover Club that “engagements already entered into” prevented his attending their meeting [MTP]. Note: The Clover was a Philadelphia dancing club formed in 1881. It was famous for its distinguished guests and for its humorous way of entertaining them. Sam spoke there in 1885 (See Apr. 9, 1885 entry.)

Sam also wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks, who had expressed concern that Sam’s work-in-progress, CY, would poke fun at revered historical characters “drawn by the master hand of old Malory.” Sam reassured her that he would leave them “unsmirched & unbelitted,” that he was “only after the life of that day, that is all; to picture it; to try to get into it; to see how it feels & seems.” He offered that he would:

…expect to write three chapters a year for thirty years…writing it for posterity only; my posterity; my great-grandchildren. It is to be my holiday amusement for six days every summer the rest of my life. Of course I do not expect to publish it; nor indeed any other book — though I fully expect to write one other book besides this one; two others, in fact, if one’s autobiography may be called a book — in fact mine will be near a library….

Sam would do more than three chapters a year — he would write sixteen chapters the next summer [Baetzhold, John Bull 107]. Sam also offered other news that would be a weekly joy/duty for him during the next few months:

Think of it! — I’ve been elected Reader to a Browning class. — I who have never of my own inclination, read a poem in my life. It consists of Livy, & Susie Warner, & Lilly Warner, & a New Haven lady & a Farmington lady, & meets in my billiard room every Wednesday morning. It is very enjoyable work; only it takes three days to prepare an hour’s reading. It takes me much longer to learn how to read a page of Browning than a page of Shakespeare. And mind you, I’m on the ABC only — his easy poems. The other day I took a glance at one of his mature pieces, to see how I am likely to fare when I get along over there. It was absolutely opaque! [MTP; MTMF 257-9]. Note: Sam’s description confirms at least one prior reading. He was in Hartford the prior two Wednesdays. His memory was faulty when he wrote Cordelia Welsh Foote on Dec. 2, 1887 that he’d been “Browning-reader forty-two weeks.” It was nearly one year.

Orion Clemens wrote to his brother. He was discouraged after writing a legal brief for a leading attorney to argue before the state supreme court, which the attorney incorporated into his own brief. Orion told of the visit “2 or 3 weeks ago” of Charles Webster and Daniel Whitford, and enclosed a “letter sheet envelope note” from Whitford about his brief. Ma went half-and-half with him on the hickory nuts sent to Sam this time; Ma still had some “remains of her cough” and the doctor was “prescribing for her itching on the ankle.”

Dr. Cleaver saw Mr. Stotts [Mollie’s father] at the hospital and says he is the happiest man he knows. I visit him every Sunday, and pay the sisters five dollars, which, but for your generosity, would have been a cramping business this month. …I see Will Montgomery Clemens is about to publish your life. I wonder if that is Susie? [MTP]. Sam wrote on the envelope, “I don’t know who Will Montgomery Clemens is.”