December 4 Tuesday – Sam’s letter which argued for changing the under-construction Statue of Liberty into one for Adam ran on page 2 of the New York Times [Budd, “Collected” 1020].
MARK TWAIN AGGRIEVED.
WHY A STATUE OF LIBERTY WHEN WE HAVE ADAM!
December 3 Monday – Howells wrote to explain his inability to leave for Hartford—his sister, Annie Howells Fréchette was coming with her two little children. He offered a few more ideas for the Sellers play and expressed hope that Raymond would agree to play the part. He told of Cable’s lectures at Chickering Hall in Boston on Nov. 26 and 28 and holding a “blow out” for him [MTHL 1: 452-4].
December 1 Saturday ca. – About this day, Sam also wrote to the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund, a group raising money for the base of the Statue of Liberty [MTP]. The letter ran in the Dec. 3 edition of the New York Times (see Dec. 3 entry).
November 30 Friday – Sam’s 48th birthday. He wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. Sam and Howells had written a new play, American Claimant, and though Sam didn’t really want to hire John T. Raymond again, he realized the benefit of doing so. Yet, he did not fully trust Raymond.
November 29 Thursday – Dora Knowlton “a stranger to you” and an actress, wrote from NYC to ask if he’d allow her to dramatize P&P [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Can’t / P&P”
November 27 Tuesday – Livy’s 38th birthday.
November 26 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, enclosing information he’d been sent about an investment. If it was “safe” he asked Webster to let him know [MTP].
November 21 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells.
“Good—& all right. Within an hour I shall be deep in an old piece of work which always interests me, any time of the year that I take it up. So I will go down into that, & not appear at the surface again till the Howellses arrive here the 3d of December” [MTHL 1: 451].
November 20 Tuesday – George W. Cable arrived for a visit. He went with the Clemenses and the Warners to a reception. Cable wrote his wife the next day that he’d “Talked my head off; but don’t worry, there wasn’t anything in it.” At the Clemens home, Cable read for “Mark T., his sweet wife, her mother, & Clara and her sister. They were pleased…” [Turner, MT & GWC 23].
November 19 Monday – Back in Hartford, Sam telegraphed Howells. He and Livy repeated an invitation for the Howellses to visit. Sam had not received a letter from Howells written the same day expressing that he couldn’t return to Hartford for a solid week, but would come “two weeks from to-day” (Dec. 3) [MTHL 1: 449-50].
“I have told thirty lies and am not out of the Woods yet; S L Clemens” [MTP].