April 4 Wednesday – Sam sponsored and introduced George W. Cable in a program of readings at Unity Hall in Hartford. To ensure a good response, Sam encouraged well-known literary types from New York and Boston to attend [Fatout, MT Speaking 176-7]. In his Apr. 6 letter to New Orleans artist Frances A. Cox, Sam wrote “George W.
April 3 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote an aphorism to John Bellows in Gloucester, England: “I would rather tell seven lies than make one explanation” [Sotheby’s catalog at MTP].
From George W. Cable’s letter to his wife:
Dear old Mark Twain sends kindest word to all of you, beginning, of course, with Nellie.
April 2 Monday – George W. Cable arrived in Hartford at noon and stayed with Charles Dudley Warner. From Cable’s letter to his wife:
Charles D. Warner met me at the door just leaving for New York. He will be back to my lecture on Wednesday. His wife is at the piano practicing for a little afternoon musicale appointed for tomorrow at this house.
April 1 Sunday – Mollie and Orion Clemens wrote to Sam & Livy. Orion thanked Sam for the German books sent. They’d written to Kate Lampton to visit when it turned warmer and that Ma would send her tickets both ways. Sorry to hear of Livy’s “danger” but were glad she was better. Mollie urged them to visit [MTP].
April – Sam wrote a maxim on stationery of the Alpha Literary Society, Greenville Ill. to an unidentified person: “It is easier—& nearly always more judicious—to tell seven lies than make one explanation…” [MTP]. Note similarity with Apr. 3 to Bellows.
March 31 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Charles Webster, conveying Livy’s apologies for not saying a proper goodbye to Annie after the opera in New York. Sam wrote that the “type setter company are going to have a meeting next week, April 4th.
March 30 Friday – Sam’s letter to the editor ran on page two of the Hartford Courant under the headline “George W. Cable”:
Of the evening of the fourth of April the gifted southerner whose name appears above, will deliver at Unity Hall, in Hartford, a lecture upon “Creole Women,” sauced with illustrative readings from “The Grandissimes” and other of his books [Courant.com].
March 27 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George W. Cable, who had written asking if a particular engagement would interfere with the planned trip and reading in Hartford. Sam telegraphed that it would not, but advised him to:
March 26 Monday – Sam sent a telegram from Hartford to George W. Cable, verifying the upcoming lecture date as Apr. 4 on “Creole Women” while working in the Baltimore reading. Sam added that Livy was “out of danger” [MTP].
March 25 Sunday – In the Mar. 26 letter to the Gerhardts, Sam referred to this morning as Livy passing “the danger point” in her recent illness [MTP].
The following classified ad ran on page 5 of the Brooklyn Eagle:
