October 18? Sunday – Livy and Sam wrote from Hartford to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Twichell came by for Sam to go walking, and both Livy and Sam wrote of it. Sam took Susy in “her little carriage.” He wrote in the afternoon, after his walk while Livy was resting. “The customary Sunday assemblage of strangers is gathered together in the grounds discussing the house” [MTL 6: 259].
October 17 Saturday – Sam’s droll article, “Magdalen Tower” ran in The Shotover Papers (or Echoes from Oxford). The remarkable 145-foot tower at Magdalen College in Oxford had been one of the side-track subjects included in his Sandwich Islands lecture given in London during late 1873. The editors of the Papers requested that Sam write something about the tower for their publication.
October 15 Thursday – Sam represented the Hartford Accident Insurance Co. at a fancy dinner of the Hartford insurance industry for Cornelius Walford at the Allyn House in Hartford. He gave a humorous speech on accident insurance. The speech was included in Sketches, New and Old (1875).
October 14 Wednesday – Hartford: Sam replied to the Oct. 13 of Louise Chandler Moulton, writer and family friend who hoped that Bliss might publish a collection of her stories.
October 13 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Owen S. McKinney, who had inquired of Sam about the Bonner woman, who Sam judged a fraud, and a forger [MTL 6: 254]. See Oct. 31 from McKinney.
Sam’s article “Mark Twain’s Cold,” ran on page two of the Hartford Courant [Courant.com].
October 12 Monday – For Sam’s speech at the Hartford Insurance banquet, see Oct. 15 entry. (Fatout gives this date [MT Speaking 89]; MTP’s Inventory Binder #1 states Fatout’s date in error).
Louise C. Moulton wrote from Pomfret, Conn.:
Dear Mr. Clemens—
October 9 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Louis J. Jennings, editor of the New York Times. Sam was “much more complimented than distressed” at someone imitating him and sending a letter purported to be his sent to the Greenwich Street Grammar School [MTL 6: 249].
October 8 Thursday – Clemens wrote To William Dean Howells, the letter unrecovered but an enclosure about The Olympic Theatre survives and may be read at [Mtl 6: 627-30].
October 7 Wednesday – Sam’s neighbor and to-be literary collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner and family, left for a year abroad. Twichell notes in his diary the date and that “A.C.O & Mary D. went with them” [Yale, copy at MTP]. Parties are unidentified.
Owen S. McKinney wrote to Sam asking about a woman whom Clemens called “a fraud”:
October 5 Monday – From Twichell’s diaries:
“Reached home after vacation and a trip of 7 weeks to Peru and the W. Coast of South America (with Yung Wing) M.T. met me at the depot” [Yale, copy at MTP].