April 5 Monday – Sam held the Monday Evening Club in his home and gave a reading “On the Decay of the Art of Lying” [MTLE 5: 62]. This was Sam’s fifth presentation to the club since being elected as a member in 1873 [Monday Evening Club]. There are several references to Francis Parkman’s works, including:
April 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion, expressing some distress:
Please don’t put anything on exhibition that can even remotely suggest me or my affairs or belongings. How could you conceive of such an idea? God knows my privacy is sufficiently invaded without the family helping in the hellish trade. Keep the cursed portraits at home—keep everything at home that hints at me in any possible way [MTLE 5: 65]. Sam briefly mentioned giving a reading the prior Friday night in Hartford.
April 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Melville E. Stone (1848-1929), founder of the first penny newspaper in Chicago, the Chicago Daily News. Evidently Stone inquired about a controversy between a “Mr. Wakeman” and “the Club”—(probably the Press Club of Chicago). Sam offered five corrections to an article, which ran about the Army Reunion [MTLE 5: 63].
April 2 Friday – In his letter of Apr. 4 to Orion, Sam wrote:
“I read before a large audience here, Friday night, but not until all the newspaper men had sworn that they would say not a single word about it, either before or after the performance” [MTLE 5: 65].
April 1 Thursday – Sam and Livy wrote from Hartford to William Dean Howells.
April – Sam, in Hartford, inscribed a copy of A Tramp Abroad to Clara L. Spaulding [MTLE 5: 57].
April? – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Frank Fuller.
March 31 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Moncure Conway about the mix-up and mess between Elisha Bliss and Andrew Chatto over engravings for TA. Sam asked Conway to intercede and clear things up [MTLE 5: 56].
Charles E. Chapin wrote a postcard to advise Sam of new rates for Hartford Ice Co. [MTP].
March 30 Tuesday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
“Thanks for your Club Contribution. It’s good, and powerfully true but you wont be allowed to get your adverbs wrong in this magazine. John is reading Tom Sawyer, and [illegible].” Note: see MS notes in source. [MTHL 2: 880, 890].
Edson Q. Beebe wrote from Montrose, Penn. to ask Sam his opinion of boys [MTP].
March 27 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Andrew Chatto after receiving his message that he’d not received the final batch of copy for Tramp. Evidently, Elisha Bliss had dropped the ball on coordinating materials and cabling the date of publication to Chatto.
March 26 Friday – David Watt Bowser wrote from Dallas to thank Sam for answering his letter. Laura Hawkins Dake, his teacher, was “so glad that you are such a famous man, and that you remember her so kindly, for she remembers you as the best friend of her youth” [MTP].