April – Vol. 1, No.1 , p.6-7 of The Globe, a literary magazine in Buffalo, N.Y. published by E.L. Cornwell, ran an article just short of two pages, “Mark Twain as a Buffalo Editor” that was rather critical of Sam’s time in that city, some three years before.
March 31 Monday – Sam read his first essay for the Hartford Monday Evening Club entitled “License of the Press” [Budd,“Collected” 1014]. Sam said, “The touchy Charles Reade can sue English newspapers and get verdicts; he would soon change his tactics here” [Gribben 572].
Sam’s article, “A Horrible Tale – Fearful Calamity in Forest Street” ran in the Hartford Courant [Camfield, bibliog.].
March 30 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the editor of the Hartford Courant, a fictitious tale about a family drowning in construction mud on Forest Avenue.
“There was a heavy sea on by this time, of mud & water mixed, & every third colossal poultice of it that rolled along made a clean breach over the wagon & left the occupants looking like the original Adam before the clay dried” [MTL 5: 325-8].
March 29 Saturday – Sam’s article “Making a Fortune,” appeared in the Jackson, California Amador Dispatch. As the “Moralist of the Main”, Sam could make his points about an issue by standing the moral order on its head. This was a funny sketch about a bank watchman robbing a bank of a million dollars, then refusing offers to return half and living on as an honored and respected man and a lesson that “even the poor may rise to affluence and respectability” [Fatout, MT Speaks 78].
March 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Will Bowen, sending Routledge’s London address for Will to write [MTL 5: 323].
March 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisha Bliss, vowing to finish The Gilded Age before leaving for England in May. Sam enclosed a letter from William Gouverneur Morris (1832-1884), who had approached Sam about publishing a book.
March 24 Monday – Bill for glass paid to Chas. Wright & Co., Hartford, $21.43 [MTP].
March 22 Saturday – Sam purchased a small wedge of land along the eastern side of their lot and 40 feet on the south for $1,000, which increased his frontage on Farmington Avenue by twenty feet [MTL 5: 271n6; Salsbury 17].
March 21 Friday – Sam paid $3 to Hawley, Goodrich & Co. for special notebooks of his design [MTP].
March 20 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Will Bowen, who had sent Sam an article about polar currents from Silas Bent, an oceanographer and formal naval officer. Sam thanked Will, and also explained his wife would not let him lecture anywhere.
“We sail for England May 17 & return in October—meantime we hope the most aggravating part of the house will be built & off our minds” [MTL 5: 320].