September 26 Tuesday – Page Mercer Baker for New Orleans Times-Democrat wrote, sending the article that Sam had asked for in his Sept. 22 letter. He spoke of the “evening we spent at Johns—the good stories over the wine, the music (in which Cables thin but melodious tenor mingled sweetly with Burthes magnificent baritone)…etc.” [MTP]. Note: the evening was May 2; see entry.
September 25 Monday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy, having just read a half column in the NY Times about Clemens’ summer home. Discussion of visits to Abbott Thayer and Augustus Saint-Gaudens [MTP].
Silas M. Tellone, Louisville, wrote asking for a letter from Mark Twain [MTP].
September 24 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster about settling for royalties owed him by the Sheldon & Co.; Osgood’s return to New York; and the Slote matter of the $5,000 “loan” which was still being settled, probably from his estate.
September 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, again about the J.S. Ogilvie “bastards”.
September 22 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles S. Fairchild.
Arrived last night, & shall leave again to-day to bring the family home next week.
September 21 Thursday – Sam telegraphed from Elmira to Charles Webster that he’d received his letter, the result was “convincing” and to “Do with that stuff as your Judgement directs” [MTP].
September 20 Wednesday – Sam often wrote notes about what he called “mental telegraphy,” thinking about a person from years ago right before their letter arrived, or as in Twichell’s case in Germany, turning a corner and meeting a man from years before he’d just been talking about. Sam’s notebook:
“Livy says ‘I have no memory.’ My own thought but about myself last night” [MTNJ 2: 505].
September 19 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, upset about material bearing his name published by J.S. Ogilvie & Co. that he had not written.
“Dear Charley—I want Messrs. Alexander & Green to go for these people at once & lively, on some charge or other. They are using my name to sell stuff which I never wrote. I would not be the author of that witless stuff (Bad Boy’s Diary) for a million dollars” [MTBus 197].
September 18 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, upon his return from a European vacation. Sam was struggling with the Mississippi book.
Welcome home! I have been half dead with malaria ever since you left; and these last few days am two-thirds dead. I work all the time, but accomplish very little—sometimes as little as 200 words in 5 hours.
September 17 Sunday – Sam also wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about a watch chain ordered from Tiffany & Co. that had not arrived in Elmira. Sam enclosed the letter from a Tiffany employee and wrote that he “got the watch chain at last, some 13 hours quicker than I could have got it by the canal” [MTP].