January 18 Monday – William D. Whitney responded to Sam’s inquiry of Charles Webster, but Whitney was unaware of Charles and could not give a character reference [MTL 6: 353]. Notes: Charles Webster and Annie Moffett were later married; Webster would be hired as Sam’s publisher. Webster would be stricken with trigeminal neuralgia, often called the “suicide disease” due to excruciating pain, which led to his death in 1891.
January 16 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John L. Toole, English comedian he met in London in 1872. Through Sam, Toole was welcomed at the Lotos Club dinner on Aug. 6, 1874. Now Toole was appearing at the Roberts Opera House in Hartford. Sam regretted being unable to attend and invited Toole to dine with the family at 5 PM the next evening.
January 15 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells grateful that he’d liked the third installment of “Old Times,” (his approval was in a Jan. 12 letter). Sam also sent the fourth installment, which ended with what Sam called a “snapper”—a sleepwalking pilot was observed skillfully directing the craft by two other pilots. One pilot remarked: “I never saw anything so gaudy before.
January 13 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James R. Osgood, answering his invitation to a Jan. 20 dinner at the Nautilus Club in Boston. Sam answered:
“Indeed I wish I could go, but the madam has made me promise that I wouldn’t absent myself from home until this epidemical & dreadful membranous croup has quitted the atmosphere hereabouts” [MTL 6: 349].
January 12 Tuesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam a two-line note that the last installment of “Old Times” was “extraordinarily good” [MTHL 1: 59].
January 11 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John T. Raymond after hosting him and Kate Field for lunch (for a description of the lunch by Annie Moffett, See MTL 6: 347n4)
January 10 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam, sending proof number two of his pilot series and writing mostly about the hoped-for New Orleans trip, and the possibilities and improbabilities of taking the wives along. Howells included the line:
January 8 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Louise Chandler Moulton about her article on his “pet detestation,” Rabelais.
“Did you know, I have often had more than half a mind to go over & dig up Rabelais & throw his bones” away? [MTL 6: 343].
James T. Fields wrote to Clemens after his visit of Jan. 7.
January 7 Thursday – James T. Fields, past editor of the Atlantic who remained active as a writer and lecturer, visited Sam in Hartford. Later that day Sam sent Fields the “original rough draft” of a poem, “Those Annual Bills,” together with a short note of thanks.
January 6 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford, again to the H.O. Houghton & Co., thanking them for the present of his subscription to the Atlantic Monthly. He added a PS:
“I appreciate the voluntary compliment of being paid more than better men, but then I am trying to deserve it. This is rare among writers.”