February 19 Monday – Sam read a paper titled, “What is Happiness?” to the Monday Evening Club in Hartford. This was his seventh presentation to the Club since his election in 1873 [Monday Evening Club]. An early question in his notebook: “Is anybody or any action ever unselfish? (Good theme for Club Essay)” [MTNJ 2: 498n214]. Sam would further develop his scrutiny on human motivation in What Is Man?
February 18 Sunday – In Hartford, Sam wrote a scorching letter to J.W. Bouton:
Draw & be damned. I subscribed for your Portfolio one year & no more. I paid for it. Since then you have thrust it upon me & persecuted me with it at your own risk & in defiance of my several protests.
February 16 Friday – George MacDonald wrote from Bordighera, Italy: “I am ashamed of my delay in answering your welcome letter, and acknowledging the excellent portrait which I am very pleased to have. But it is so difficult to write letters when one can only by a strain get through the days work of writing other kinds of things.” He asked if Sam would collaborate on a book he was writing by adding “a little bit here & there” [MTP].
February 15 Thursday – Sam telegraphed from Hartford to James B. Pond informing him that George W. Cable was leaving for New York within the half-hour [MTP].
Andrew Chatto wrote but the letter is illegible. Made out one reference to publishing LM [MTP].
February 14 Wednesday – Ex-Governor Marshall Jewell’s funeral was held at 11 AM. The body was then on view at Asylum Hill Congregational Church at 2:30 PM with “public exercises.” It is likely that Sam attended one or both of these services [N.Y. Times for Feb. 13, 1883 p.2]. (See Feb. 10 entry, letter to Howells of Mar.
February 13 Tuesday – Bessie Stone wrote from Auburndale, Mass. concerned about Sam’s soul: “I expect that the Lord Jesus will knock at the door of your heart this week (Rev. 3, 20), and please let Him in” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “D— fool”; Rev. 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
February 12 Monday – “American Humorist. Mark Twain” New York: Funk & Wagnalls, by H.R. Haweis was a biography and criticism which argued that though Sam built a reputation as a humorist, he should be taken seriously; emphasized his travel writings [eBay Antique Book Central, Sept. 28, 2009, Item 400075870148]. Note: in the Sept. 1998 issue of Firsts 8.9 p.45, Mac Donnell writes: “Issued separately in wrappers and also bound in cloth by the publisher with others in the series.
February 10 Saturday – At about 8 PM, Sam went to the Hartford home of ex-Governor Marshall Jewell, three times governor, minister to Russia, and also Postmaster General in the Grant Administration. Sam stopped by to “beguile an idle hour for him with a yarn or two,” but was “received at the door with whispers, and the information that he was dying.” Jewell “died that night two hours after” Sam left.
February 8 Thursday – Mary A. Riley wrote to Sam, with the news that her late brother, John Henry Riley (d. Sept. 1872) wished Sam to have some opal studs. Her other brother had hoped Clemens would come to Phila. where he might give the studs; could she mail them? [MTP]. Note: she waited 11 years!
February 7 Wednesday – Christian Tauchnitz, Jr. wrote hoping to soon receive proofs of LM from Chatto—he could pay Chatto or Twain direct, as Sam pleased. Seeing that they had not yet published all of Sam’s works in their Continental Edition, he sent a list of those they had [MTP].