August 21 Monday – Valentine Hammann, secretary of the Executive Committee for the New York Press Club wrote to Sam, inviting Sam to join 200 other members of the Club [MTP]. Note: Sam accepted but his letter confirming has been lost [MTPO notes with Sept. 11 – Oct. 15 to Bladen].
August 20 Sunday – From Townsend Harbor, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam, mostly about family matters and fun. He began by asking, however:
“Why don’t you come out with a letter, or speech, or something, for Hayes? I honestly believe that there isn’t another man in the country who could help him so much as you. Do think the matter seriously over” [MTHL 1: 146].
August 19 & 20 Sunday – David Gray from Buffalo visited with Sam and Livy [MTLE 1: 105, 101-2; MTPO notes Aug. 4 to Fairbanks].
August 18 Friday – Ross R. Winans wrote to Sam; evidently Winans was at Newport when Sam and Livy vacationed there in 1875 and had been witnessed to Sam’s bowling prowess on an impossibly warped single lane with Higginson.
[on Union League Club stationery, Madison ave & 26th St., N.Y.]
My Dear Mr. Clemens,
August 16 Wednesday –James H. Dowland wrote from Chicago, “adding a few words” to Dr. Jackson’s letter about Dowland’s lecture. “He has handed me your reply, and I thank you cordially for the encouragement contained in it.” He asked Sam to give him “a helping hand toward success,” as he’d done with Raymond [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Ass”
August 14 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Eustace D. Conway, Moncure’s seventeen-year-old son, who evidently had been working for his father and attempting to interest a play promoter named Taylor in producing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer on the stage. Sam agreed, as the story stood it was not dramatizable and explained:
August 13 Sunday – Louis E. Cooke of The Martino Troupe wrote from Buffalo to send Twain a circular for Yankee Robinson’s lecture tour—could he be induced to write a lecture for him? [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “From an ass about ‘Yankee Robinson’ .”
August 12 Saturday – Bill paid to D.S. Brooks & Sons, Hartford dealer in “hot air furnaces, cooking ranges, stoves and tin ware, low down grates and Marbelized slate mantles” $9.65 [MTP].
August 11 Friday – George W. Smalley wrote from Watertown, Mass. having just rec’d Sam’s telegram forwarded from NYC. They hadn’t made plans yet but hoped they might accept his “friendly and kind invitation” though Mrs. S. had been “very ill with bronchitis & fever.” They’d been out of the country [MTP].
David Gray wrote from Buffalo.
August 10 Thursday – Helen M. Chapin (Mrs. Thomas E. Chapin) wrote from Newton Centre, Mass. “Please do me the favor to accept the contents of a box which I send by the same mail, with the hope that they will amuse you. They are four ‘Illuminated Silhouettes’ …If you will hold them between your eye and the light you will be able to see through them, and perhaps read a moral lesson!” [MTP]. Note: sent to Hartford, not Elmira.
Moncure Conway wrote from Ostend, Belgium.