March 4 Monday – Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote . “I send you today more signatures of new Book, all that our printer had completed thus far. / Our Mr Wilde leaves on the 23rd of this month & if that little affair takes place it will occur say two or three nights previous—Can you come & what notice do you need?” He suggested a second volume of Sketches [MTP].
March 3 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells sent Sam a note revising his Mar. 2 suggestion.
“Mrs. Howells starts to New York on Wednesday [Mar. 6], and I propose to go with her as far as Hartford, where if convenient we will both stop off till one o’clock the next day. We shall leave Boston on the 3 p.m. train….Don’t bother to meet us at the station. We know the way” [MTHL 1: 222].
March 2 Saturday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells sent Sam a postcard asking if “Saturday of next week” would “do for that projected visit?” [MTHL 1: 221].
March 1 Friday – Sayles, Dick & Fitzgerald’s Publishing House wrote to Sam, agreeing to take his “Speech on Women” out of the book in which it appeared. They thanked him for his conditional permission to use “Membranous Croup” [MTP].
February 28 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Bayard Taylor, who had recently been appointed as the new U.S. minister to Germany. Sam had learned that they would be shipmates on the Holsatia. Sam told him not to: “change your mind & leave us poor German-ignorant people to cross the ocean with nobody to talk to” [MTLE 3: 25].
February 27 Wednesday – Frank Fuller wrote to Sam on Woodruff Iron Works to Fuller Feb. 27 :
February 26 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Dean and Elinor Howells. Sam wanted to see his good friend before leaving for Europe. He asked if they could “run down here before March 25—any time…” Sam told of plans to leave for Elmira Mar. 25, and to sail for Hamburg Apr. 11. He added a PS with news that Bayard Taylor and family would also be on the Holsatia [MTLE 3: 21-2].
February 25 Monday – Sam gave a speech at the New York Press Club. The text is not available [Schmidt].
Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote to Sam. He’d been down with a cold but was better and had called at the Hamburg line office to secure passage on the Holsatia—the costs made him “unusually short” and wondered if Sam might help [MTP].
February 24 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam.
“I must see you somehow, before you go. I’m in dreadfully low spirits about it….I was afraid your silence meant something wicked” [MTHL 1: 218].
February 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens about Orion’s “wandering, motiveless imitation of the rampaging French lunatic, Jules Verne.” Sam’s letter revealed some anxiety over Orion embarrassing the “family name,” meaning the name of Mark Twain, which he’d spent a lifetime building. It wasn’t decent to imitate an entire book, he wrote.