February 9 Wednesday – Sam was in New York, staying at the Victoria Hotel. At 10:45 P.M. he finished writing and memorizing his speech for the Stationers Dinner [Feb. 10 to Livy].
February 8 Tuesday – Sam went to New York City, where he stayed from Feb. 8 to 11 at the Victoria Hotel. He took care of business while in the City and spoke at the Stationers Board of Trade dinner on Feb. 10 [MTNJ 3: 278n180].
February 7 Monday – John W. Chapman, an assistant chaplain of the City Missionary Society of New York wrote to Sam of the death of Jesse M.
February 6 Sunday – In Hartford Sam accepted an invitation by John M. Holcombe (husband to the woman who had sent the form about Feb. 1 renaming the Darby and Joan Club to the Century Club) to speak briefly. It was “pretty short notice,” Sam wrote but he would be glad to come and “weave a 5-minute discourse out of” the remarks of other speakers [MTP]. Note: No doubt this was the Feb.
February 5 Saturday – In Hartford Sam responded to a Mrs. Thornburgh (identity unknown), saying she wasn’t “troubling him too much,” but that he’d been away from journalism some seventeen years and knew only “two newspaper men in all the east” [MTP]. Her request must have had something to do with journalism. (Her earlier letter is not listed in the MTP’s Incoming file.)
February 4 Friday – In Hartford Sam finished the letter begun Feb. 3 to William Smith. He’d received Smith’s books and expressed a desire to visit Morley on his next trip to England. Both he and Livy enjoyed the “beautiful and interesting” books by Smith.
February 3 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century Magazine:
Say — please send me a couple of proofs of that truck pretty soon in a few days, won’t you? I’m to read it to our Young Girl’s Club here in the house and b’gosh I haven’t got any copy. I’ll see you at the Publishers and Stationers’ Dinner at the Brunswick the 10th if you’re there which I reckon you will be if you are [MTP]. Note: “that Truck” was “English as She is Taught”.
February 2 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote a one-liner to Bruce Weston Munro in Toronto that he had not received an item Munro had sent, probably the novel Munro had written of sending [MTP]. See Oct. 21, 1881 entry for more on Munro [MTP].
February 1 Tuesday ca. – In Hartford Sam responded to a form letter from Mrs. John M. Holcombe for the Darby and Joan Club of Hartford, which had decided to rename itself the Century Club. Sam wrote across the form, “Dear Mrs. Holcombe. The old Clemenses have joined.” Others named on the form were Mrs. J.M. Taylor, Mrs. William Hamersley, Mrs. George Perkins, Mrs. William Matson, and Mrs.
February – “Clemens became an enthusiastic pupil [of Alphonse Loisette (Marcus Dwight Larrowe)] around February 1887, receiving instruction in person and by mail. He provided an endorsement of the method for Loisette’s advertisements and allowed his name to be used in promotional materials in 1887 until the number of inquiries directed to Hartford became intolerable” [MTNJ 3: 277n176]. It was enough to make a man want to forget.