July 3 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to John D. Adams of Harper & Brothers about the proofs and location of an “ennobling scene” for the forthcoming Book II of JA in the magazine’s serial run. Sam also confided that he was “not out of bed yet.”
July 2 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote on a series of three stones, a “Contract” with Julia J. Beecher (Mrs. Thomas K. Beecher). Stones 1-3:
If you prove right and I prove wrong
A million years from now,
In language plain and frank and strong
My error I’ll avow
To your dear mocking face.
If I prove right, by God his grace,
Full sorry I shall be,
For in that solitude no trace
There’ll be of you and me
Nor of our vanished race.
July 1 Monday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.
Yours of June 29 received [not extant]. I have been considering and shall not close with the offer of $12000, for 12 magazine articles until I have taken plenty of time to make up my mind. I’ve got to go to New York if I possibly can, before July 10, and if I go I will telegraph you and have a talk with you then.
Sam thought he could travel if the doctor consented [MTP].
July – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, Sam forwarded John Horne’s June 29 letter and asked Whitmore to write Horne after July 14th and tell him that Sam had left for Australia. Sam also asked Whitmore to call on John Day if the rent wasn’t paid on the Farmington Ave. house by the 13th. [MTP].
June 30 Sunday – In Elmira at Quarry Farm Sam wrote again to H.H. Rogers on the matter of a meeting with his creditors. Charles Langdon had taken Sam’s last letter and was intending to go to New York where he would deliver it to Rogers. (Langdon was taking medical treatments in the City during this period.)
June 29 Saturday – John Horne an autograph seeker in Glasgow, Scotland wrote to Sam, responding to Sam’s June 19 answer. Horne asked if Sam could and would “bless” him with James Russell Lowell’s autograph, since Sam had mentioned getting all those autographs on April Fools’ Day in 1884 [MTP].
Sam also responded to a letter from H.H. Rogers, evidently suggesting Sam simply go on his tour and ignore the subpoenas, or perhaps simply asking the what-if.
June 28 Friday – Frank Hall Scott for Century Co. wrote with regret that Sam was unable to submit pieces for the magazine and hoped the trip would prove good medicine [MTP].
June 27 Thursday – Livy wrote to H.H. Rogers: “I have been quite distressed today by the paper that was served on Mr. Clemens and I feel that in some way these Webster & Co. matters must be arranged.” She confided that Sam did not know she was writing him [MTP].
June 26 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm, Sam was served with a subpoena brought by Thomas Russell & Son, printers and bookbinders, a creditor of Webster & Co. This was published on June 4 in the NY Times (see entry); the debt was $5,046. This was the subject of Sam’s PS finish for his letter to Rogers he began June 25:
June 25 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to George Washington Cable, who had written (not extant) praising the JA installment in Harper’s Monthly.
You make me feel ever so proud & pleased. I wrote the story from love, & one particularly likes to have one’s pets praised.