December 18 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. After complimenting Aldrich on “Cloth of Gold,” a book of poetry, Sam talked of ice-skating:
“I’ve been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs. Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun in skating if you could do it with somebody else’s muscles” [MTL 6: 321].
December 17 Thursday – Sam had brought back from Howells an inscribed copy of A Foregone Conclusion as a gift for Joseph Twichell. Sam presented the book to Joe. In the evening Sam and Joe went to a benefit concert at the Roberts Opera House for the Hartford Young Men’s Institute. They listened to the Yale Glee Club.
December 16 Wednesday – John M. Hay wrote after reading the first installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi” in the Atlantic.
December 15 Tuesday – Sam traveled to Boston to attend the dinner at the Parker House, hosted by the Atlantic Monthly for its contributors. About 30 contributors were present. Howells was toastmaster. Guests included: Henry Oscar Houghton, Melancthon M. Hurd, Horace E. Scudder, and George Harrison Mifflin (all business associates of Houghton).
December 14 Monday – In Hartford Sam typed a letter to Howells about Livy catching him in the use of profanity mentioned in Howell’s letter of Dec. 11.
“…nothing but almost inspired lying got me out of this scrape with my scalp. Does your wife give you rats, like this, when you go a little one-sided?” [MTL 6: 316].
December 13 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells suggesting Howells employ some ruse with his wife in order to:
December 12 Saturday – Charles Warren Stoddard wrote from Venice of his travels, preceded by this paragraph:
Dear Mark.
December 11 Friday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote:
“Don’t you dare to refuse that invitation to the Atlantic dinner for Tuesday evening. For fear you mayn’t have got it, I’ll just say that it was from the publishers, and asked you to meet Emerson, Aldrich, and all ‘those boys’ at the Parker House at 6 o’clock, Tuesday, Dec. 14. Come! ” [MTHL 1: 51].
December 10 Thursday – Bret Harte gave a lecture in Farwell Hall, Chicago, titled “American Humor.” Though briefly treating Mark Twain, Harte offered praise:
“To-day, among our latest American humorists, such as Josh Billings, The ‘Danbury Newsman,’ and Orpheus C. Kerr, Mark Twain stands alone as the most original humorist that America has produced. He alone is inimitable” [Tenney, Supplement American Literary Realism, Autumn 1981 p162].
December 9 Wednesday – In Hartford, using a typewriter he’d purchased in Boston with the help of Petroleum Nasby (David Locke), Sam typed from Hartford to Orion. The typewriter cost Sam $125 and could only print upper case letters.