August 24 Friday – In Elmira Livy and Sam wrote a short letter to Mrs. David Billings of Elmira, with Sam inserting and finishing her first sentence and she finishing his next to last. Livy thought there was a similarity between the two handwritings [MTP]. Note: The envelope was marked “Mrs. Daniel Billings.”
Sam also wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.
If you still harbor the due & proper sense of obligation to me for discovering Kemble for you, suppose you just pay up by hiring Miss Mary C. MacDonald for a few months to do general utility work for you in her line of art, on a salary not heavy buy of size fair for one who is on trial. I have not answered Johnson’s letter yet, but you can tell him that if he & Hall have not reached an agreement here is his opportunity: make me this trial of this artist, & he shall have that chapter out of General Sheridan’s book…[MTP]. Note: Sam was willing to forego his share of the profit on a sale of the excerpt.
Sam’s notebook: [Chk #] 4318, Aug. 24 MacDonald $30 [3: 477]. Note: “Mary C. MacDonald, a struggling artist whose career Clemens had tried to advance” [n241]. (See p.387, note 296 in MTNJ 3.)
Orion Clemens wrote to Sam that the N.Y. Mutual Life Ins. Co.had paid Mollie $1,075.51 on an endowment policy he bought 20 years before. He also had stock in the Keokuk Loan and Building Assoc.; he could borrow $1,700 on to build a larger room with a water closet. If they didn’t build on they would move to a better house and would decide within a week. Ma was still delusional [MTP].
Webster & Co. wrote to Sam: “Your favor received. Glad to know that you approve of our plan. We now have 25,000 sets of the book under way [Sheridan], and 25,000 more printing. Mr. Peale, of Chicago, was just in here, and we asked him what he thought a reasonable estimate for the sale of the book. He is a rather conservative man, but said he was certain it would exceed 100,000 sets” [MTP].
Arthur H. Wright for Webster & Co. wrote Sam the bank balances total: $2,807.88 [MTP].
Joseph Hall for Hartford Public High School replied to Sam’s Aug. 20 inquiry that “while we do not allow beginners to take two languages,” he saw no reason why Sam’s daughter could not “take Latin, French, and Algebra next term,” since she’d already had some Latin [MTP].
H.B.G. Starkweather, a 21 year old from Brownville, N.Y. wrote to Sam asking for “a few points” that would aid him in his desire to become an elocutionist and lecturer [MTP].