March 2 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam that Ma “seems well” but they were trying to keep her in her room. Orion was glad Sam “meant to come.”
When I read your letter to Ma, she said: “Tell him I want the horses and carriage he promised me. He never can pay me for all the trouble he was. He was the worst child I had — hollered and squalled day and night — wouldn’t let the nurse nor me, either, rest” [MTP].
March 1 Saturday – Abby Sage Richardson’s dramatization of P&P went on tour [MTNJ 3: 481-2].
Dr. Clarence C. Rice had tickets for a play (unnamed) this evening and had invited Sam to go with him. It’s not clear if they attended. See Feb. 20.
Daniel Whitford wrote one-sentence to Sam, enclosing unspecified amount for P&P royalty [MTP].
March – Webster & Co. sent “Books sent out during February, 1890” totaling 4,631, with 1,759 CY leading [MTP]. Note: the MTP catalogues this as a Feb. incoming entry.
In an unfinished piece titled, “Concerning the Scoundrel Edward H. House,” Sam accused House of lying about collaborating on Arrah-na-Pogue, or The Wicklow Wedding, the 1864 play in Dublin, Ireland by Dion Boucicault. Sam put this claim behind his suggesting House dramatize P&P,
February 28 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Matthias H. Arnot, letter not extant but referred to in Arnot’s Mar. 3 response. Sam was urging Arnot to come look at the Paige typesetter [MTP].
February 27 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion about notices of CY and about the health of their mother. He was gratified with Charles H. Clark’s review in the Courant. Of another unspecified review arrived, he wrote that it made him “exceedingly comfortable.” He remarked he’d received “so many uncomplimentary blasts” lately and enjoyed the change. Many of the negative reviews of CY were from the English. Livy was now well.
February 26 Wednesday – William J. Hamersley wrote to Sam that “Paige told me yesterday that you wanted me to try to sell some royalties & I have tried and can do nothing” [MTP].
Daniel Whitford wrote to Sam:
February 25 Tuesday – In a letter to Grace King, Livy wrote that she was just getting well from an attack of Quinzy,” having been in bed for “nearly a week in New York with Mr. Clemens as nurse” [MTNJ 3: 539n175]. She also confided that they had attended the opening of P&P play and found it “a real disappointment…In the main it is poor, and does not in the least do the book, we think, justice” [543-4n184]. Note: Quinsy was their term for tonsillitis.
February 24 Monday – The U.S. Congress approved Chicago over New York as the site of the Columbian Exposition of 1892/3. From the New York Times, Feb. 25, 1890 p.2:
CHICAGO FRANTIC WITH JOY
— — —
PURELY A COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE
WITH NO SPARK OF SENTIMENT.
February 23 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam:
Last night we gave Ma a soapsuds injection, and she was relieved for the first time since last Sunday. Then slept through the night, for the first time in a week or two [MTP].
February 22 Saturday – † On or just after this day Sam sent the Feb. 21 Webster & Co. inquiry about Lounsbury to Twichell: Dear Joe:/ ? / Ys Ever/ Mark./ ~ [MTP].
The Critic reviewed CY:
We do not at all approve of Mark’s performance; it is very naughty indeed: but — and that is all he and his publishers want — we cannot help laughing at it [Tenney 18].