January 6 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to thank Sam for his Jan. 4 letter praising the play. Howells was discouraged by the play’s draw in New England and didn’t suppose it paid expenses in Worcester, Providence, Springfield or Hartford; and he didn’t blame Lawrence Barrett for withdrawing. Howells supplied some feedback from the Brahmins to whom Sam had written apologies for Whittier’s birthday debacle:
January 4 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells that his play, A Counterfeit Presentment, was “enchanting. I laughed & cried all the way through it” [MTLE 3: 1]. The play ended in Boston. Howells wrote more than 30 works for the theater and this was his best, though only moderately successful.
January 2 Wednesday – Sam and Livy went to the Hartford Opera House with Lilly Warner to see Howells’ play, A Counterfeit Presentment. Charles Dudley Warner’s unsigned review of the play in the Hartford Courant was positive, comparing Howells’ writing with Goldoni’s “pure comedy of unexaggerated real life” [MTHL 2: 217n2].
January 1 Tuesday – Livy’s visitor book was signed by Carrie L. Brown, Frank T. Brown, and Ella F. Brown [MTP].
Moncure Conway wrote to wish Sam a happy new year and to say:
December 31 Monday – Charles E. Perkins wrote to advise of a credit to Sam’s account for $450 as “interest on your western loan.” He lists: W.S. Bland, M T Burwell, R Miller, and N Wethersby [MTP].
December 29 Saturday – Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to reassure Sam he hadn’t taken offense to his remarks at Whittier’s birthday dinner [MTP]. Note: on the env., “Publ. In part in Paine Biog, II pp 607-8.”
December 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, thanking him for his letter of Dec. 25 which “was a godsend.” Sam was particularly grateful for Howells:
“…consent that I write to those gentlemen; for you discouraged my hints in that direction that morning in Boston—rightly, too, for my offense was yet too new, then”
December 27 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam wrote individual apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes for his embarrassing speech at Whittier’s Dec. 17 birthday party. He claimed he’d given the speech “innocently & unwarned,” and spoke of his mortification. He wrote of Livy’s “distress”; that:
December 25 Tuesday – Christmas – William Dean Howells wrote to Charles Dudley Warner about Sam’s letter of Dec. 23: “This morning I got a letter from poor Clemens that almost breaks my heart. I hope I shall be able to answer it in just the right way” [MTHL 2: 212n3].
He then wrote to Sam that being in the Atlantic would “…help and not hurt us many a year yet…” He then began to repair Sam’s wounds:
December 24 Monday – This is the date Sam gave as having returned Bret Harte’s I.O.U.’s totaling $3,000, only to receive an indignant reply that “permanently annulled the existing friendship.” As Duckett explains, “If Mark Twain’s date is correct, the return of the notes occurred within a week after Mark’s humiliation at the Whittier Birthday Dinner. During this period, Mark Twain felt increasingly penitent and friendless” [168].
Sam Bernard wrote to Sam; not found at MTP, but catalogued as UCLC 48597.