March 19 Sunday – Susy Clemens’ 21st birthday. In her late March letter to Louise Brownell, Susy wrote:

Mr. Phelps was with us on the 19th my birthday, twenty first, and he tried to tease me past bearing but I didn’t mind. He is very charming but so naïve! A naïve ambassador. He has accepted the judgeship [Cotton 101219]. Note: see Feb. 14, 1893 entry on Phelps.

Sam wrote to Susan Crane about Susy’s birthday, a “fact which will be drifting through” her mind at the breakfast table, “& there will be pictures drifting with the facts, — & ghosts.”

I dreamed I was born, & grew up, & was a pilot on the Mississippi, & a miner & journalist in Nevada, & a pilgrim in the Quaker City, & had a wife & children & went to live in a Villa out of Florence — & this dream goes on & on & on, & sometimes seems so real that I almost believe it is real. I wonder if it is? But there is no way to tell; for if one applied tests, they would be part of the dream, too, & so would simply aid the deceit. I wish I knew whether it is a dream or real [MTP]. Note: Sam became intrigued with the idea that all reality was merely a dream, an idea which would be expressed in his later writings.

Sam added that “Mr. Phelps and Mrs. Laffan dined and spent the evening, & we had a high time.” Note: William Walter Phelps, and Georgiana Ratcliffe Laffan.

The San Francisco Examiner ran article by Dan DeQuille (William Wright), “Salad Days of Mark Twain” [Tenney 21: Fatout, MT in Va City 166].