January 20 Friday – Howells, in a Boston boarding house where he might be close to his doctor, answered Sam’s Jan. 18 letter. Howells thanked him for the Gerhardt letter and remarked how “the ideal perfection of some things in life” led him to conclude, “never to meddle with the ideal in fiction….” He was just now recovering from a five-week stint in a sick bed due to exhaustion.
January 19 Thursday – Sam’s letter of Jan. 18 to Howells implied Ned House and daughter Koto ended their visit at the Clemens home this day. Koto had been ill but was “up & around again, now” [MTHL 1: 384].
Orion wrote Sam again, anxious that he had not personally addressed the package with his MS, asking Sam to let him know as soon as it arrived [Fanning 195].
January 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. He informed him of Ned House’s visit, a story Charles Dudley Warner had told of a faulty will for the late Mrs. Dan Fisk, and enclosed a Jan. 1 letter from Hattie Gerhardt. The Gerhardts were in Paris, where Karl was studying art, and had enjoyed a visit from the Warners.
January 16 Monday – Worden, Webb & Co. wrote advising of the sale of stock, 100 shares of Western Union @ 82 [MTP].
January 15 Sunday – The Brooklyn Eagle, page 1, ran an article headlined “SAGEBRUSH SKETCHES, How Mark Twain’s Brightest Effort Was Kept from Print.” The paper gave credit without a prior date to the San Francisco Call. It seems Joe Goodman once called upon Sam to write up a fancy new saloon in Virginia City. Sam gathered a box of liquors from the saloon and “arranged them in a long row,” then tasting and describing each in print.
January 13 Friday – Charles Webster wrote that he had Patterson at work on the brass. He enclosed (not in file) a report of the Am. Pub. Co. from Bradstreets and would get another from Dunn & Wyman and “we can see how they agree. I think there are some lies in that statement, especially about the par value of stock” [MTP].
January 12 Thursday – Edmund C. Stedman wrote; not found at MTP though catalogued as UCLC 41429.
Ency J. Coleman wrote from Kalamazoo, Mich. to ask for a letter on “Clubs” for his club [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “No Answer”
January 11 Wednesday – Thomas B. Aldrich for Atlantic Monthly wrote to thank for P&P: “a charming conception and charmingly worked out. The only thing I have against the idea is that I did not think of it first” [MTP].
John Russell. Young wrote from NYC. “Any day or anytime will suit,—either here or in H.” [MTP].
January 10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to David “Wattie” Bowser, who evidently had sent Sam a frog when Sam was in Canada.
“…they put him in the greenhouse & he lost himself immediately. The gardener hunted for him every day or two, & three days ago he found him. I have seen him, & he is all right & manifestly enjoying himself.”
January 9 Monday – At 11 A.M. Sam and Edward H. House called at the hotel where John Russell Young had been staying but he’d left on the 10:30 train. Later, Sam wrote from Hartford to Young:
“The prospective pleasure of writing that book [LM] grows with the moments; & already I foresee that in the building of it I am going to find a delight comparable to going to heaven.”