October 12 Friday – In Boston, William Dean Howells wrote a short note to Sam, advising,
“As soon as I mentioned our plan for a play, Mrs. Howells nobly declared that she would do anything for money, and that I might go to you when I liked” [MTHL 1: 444].
October 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. Sam had received and approved of game details Webster suggested. Sam wrote to go ahead and have the game put in type. Orion’s follow through upset Sam.
“—and mind, don’t send me first-proof; & don’t send me first revise, either. Send me the second-revise….Save me what profanity you can. Orion’s MS is infernal….Make a new board, Charley, with all improvements to date, & send it to me” [MTBus 222].
October 9 Tuesday – Charles Webster wrote about a personal matter—a desk for Livy [MTP].
October 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the Miller & Bingham & Elder Manufacturing Co.
“I will explain that the shirt I wear is not a patented article, but I invented it myself, for the public benefit of lazy men. It & its collar open in the back, & the collar & the cuffs are not detachable. No buttons anywhere about it except a couple at the back of the neck. This saves much profanity” [MTP].
October 6 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, reminding him to send the $80 secretary for Livy’s coming birthday [MTBus 222].
Sam wrote and signed a check to Fox & Co. for $121.47 [Heritage Bookshop Catalogue 130, p. 90 item 458].
Worden & Co. Wrote receipt of Sam’s $2,350 of Oct. 5 to the margin call [MTP].
October 4 Thursday – Sam, in Hartford, wrote congratulations to A.V.S. Anthony, Osgood’s design manager, whose daughter was getting married. Sam sent his regrets at being unable to attend the ceremony [MTP].
October 3 or 4 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, sending new ideas to add to the history game and instructions for a new board—two boards with felt in between [MTBus 222].
October 1 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Edward House. He complained that Twichell’s publication of his letter:
“…broke up some quite extensive plans of mine, & squandered & rendered useless the material out of which I had meant to build an illustrated small book—but that was the smallest part of the plan which he ruined” [MTHL 1: 440n4].
October – “American Literary Portraits / Mark Twain” ran in the Oct. issue of The Ideal Monthly Magazine, p.8-10. Not everyone was enamored of Sam:
“To him there is nothing sacred….At times he is so coarse he is not fit for polite society…has nothing, absolutely nothing, to redeem his coarseness, his irreverence, his want of refinement” [Tenney, MTJ, Spring 2004 p4].
September 30 Sunday – In Boston, ready to travel to Virginia to see his father, W.D. Howells wrote a short note to Sam, advising he wouldn’t be able to stop in Hartford on the way down, but hoped to stop on the way home [MTHL 1: 443].