May 5 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion and Mollie Clemens.
Dear Sister & Bro:
Your letters received today—am very glad indeed for the news they brought. We finished revamping & refining the book tonight—ten days’ labor. It is near midnight & we are just through.
May 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisha Bliss that he and Charles Dudley Warner would “be ready to talk business by about Tuesday, Wednesday, or, at latest, Thursday” (May 8). Sam also used a bit of leverage by passing on the judgment of Sheldon & Co. that he would make “a serious & damaging mistake” trying to sell a novel by subscription.
May 1 Thursday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Livy in Elmira. Sam asked if she was well because he’d only had two letters since she left and he figured he’d written fifteen or sixteen [MTL 5: 360]. Sam often exaggerated; Livy had only been gone a week.
Sam signed a receipt dated May 1, 1873:
April 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Captain John E. Mouland, sending Samuel Chalmers Thompson with the letter.
“The bearer is my friend and London helpmeet…He would like to sail with us, May 17 in the ‘Batavia’ & I would exceedingly like it myself. I hope that the ship is not so full but that a shelf can be found for him to dispose himself upon.”
April 28 Monday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela Moffett, about checks sent, her St. Louis letter received, and sending Orion some English newspapers he wanted. Sam observed about Orion’s late employment to Bliss:
Dear Sister:
April 27 Sunday – In Hartford, Sam had lunch with Joe Twichell [Letter to Livy, Apr. 26].
April 26 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Colton Greene, a passenger on the Batavia during the rescue at sea. In relating a visit by Captain John E. Mouland earlier that month, Sam wrote:
“We talked a deal about you & your disheartening habit of cursing & swearing at the table while the ladies & the ministers needed quiet & silence wherein to coax their sustenance to go down—& stay.”
April 25 and 26 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy in Elmira.
April 24 Thursday – Livy and baby Susy accompanied Livy’s mother and cousin Hattie Lewis to Elmira. Sam remained in Hartford to finish The Gilded Age [MTL 5: 354]. What valuables did he place in his Hartford bank vault? A receipt in Sam’s financials for the year reads:
April 22 Tuesday – Sam’s letter dated Apr. 17 to David G. Croly, editor of the New York Daily Graphic ran in that paper [MTL 5: 343n1]. The headings Sam pointed to: “solemn peacefulness” and “general stagnation, the profound lethargy that broods over the land” included: