Day By Day Dates

April – With Livy, Susy Clemens left Bryn Mawr for good and returned home. Powers claims she was “underweight and overwrought” [MT A Life 537]. Note: Charles Langdon’s Apr. 2 to Sam mention’s Livy’s “thin and worn” condition, which suggests he saw her in N.Y. on Apr. 1 or 2. Significantly, Langdon made no such evaluation of Susy.

April 1 Wednesday – Frederick J. Hall wrote a long letter and a short letter to Sam. The shortie was enclosed with a proof set of the Mark Twain’s Memory Builder game for his approval. The long letter dealt with Watson Gill feeling “pretty sore” about the fact that Webster & Co. was now doing business that used to be sent to Gill, who would threaten to appeal to Sam on each dispute. The current argument was over 70 or 80 of the Sheridan books sent to Gill that were damanged after lying on the dock at Stoningham, Conn.

April 2 Thursday – Charles J. Langdon telegraphed from the Gilsey House in N.Y. for Sam to send “any and all bonds you may have of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp.” He then wrote to Sam:

Since I telegraphed you this morning I have had a delightful call [visit] from Livy and Susy, and to them explained about the Clearfield bonds; that is to say, I am advised from Elmira that they were sent to Mr. Olmsted, with mine, at Harrisburg, and that we have a receipt for them.

April 3 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Blakely Hall, the editor of the magazine Truth. Established in 1881, Truth began as a small weekly covering New York City life. 1891 brought additional financial backers and Hall, who was already a well-known editor. He made over the magazine as a glossy, lavishly illustrated magazine of humor, fiction, reviews, poetry, and cartoons.

April 4 Saturday – In Hartford Sam responded to Howells’ Apr. 3:

April 5 Sunday – Robert W. Carl sent a note and a clipping from this day’s New York Recorder, which he called, “a comparatively new journal.” The article was titled, “MARK TWAIN’S REVENGE,” the story from Sen. William M. Stewart’s perspective of why Sam’s RI featured an unflattering illustration of the Senator. Jones claimed the picture was published due to his threat to “flog” Sam in Washington, D.C.

April 6 Monday – The N.Y. Times, p.4 “The Academy’s Exhibition” described the 66th exhibition of the National Academy of Design, which included “a half length of ‘Mark Twain’ by Charles Noel Flagg.”

April 7 Tuesday – Frederick Fitzgerald wrote to Sam that “General Hawley would be in town off and on for five or six days” and was presently at the City Hotel [MTP]. Note: evidently Fitzgerald worked for Hawley, whom Sam wanted to see.

April 8 Wednesday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam’s about Frank Bliss’s Apr. 4 letter which objected to the issuance of a cheap edition of HF:

April 9 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall asking him to:

…ransack your safe for my old contracts with American Publishing Co. and if you can’t find them require them of Webster, who has without doubt carted them off in obedience to his native disposition to smouch all unwatched property. I think the contracts may enable me to forbid those people to issue cheap editions without my privity and consent…We will issue cheap editions — especially if they do not approve [MTLTP 271-2].

April 10 Friday – Sam had received a phonograph from the New England Phonograph Co., but it came with a repaired seal to a battery. Franklin G. Whitmore wrote for Sam that the battery had been shipped back for replacement [MTP].

April 11 Saturday – Howells sent a brief letter of introduction for Sergei M. Stepnyak (Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski). “I am sure you and he will not fail to be great friends” [MTHL 2: 643]. The source notes identify Kravchinski as a “Russian Nihilist and exile,” who wrote under the pseudonym Stepnyak (Often spelled Stepniak). In Nov. 1888, Howells had issued a positive review of Stepnyak’s The Russian Peasant. Stepnyak lectured on Siberian exiles, Tolstoi, and the need for revolution in Russia [n1].

April 12 Sunday – Sergei M. Stepnyak (Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski), a Russian revolutionary, wrote to Sam from the Alvorton Hotel in Boston, including a brief letter of introduction (Apr. 11) from William Dean Howells. Stepnyak asked if he might call on Sam when he passed through Hartford in a few days [MTHL 2: 643n1].

April 13 Monday – Arthur Crabtree wrote from New Britain, Conn. inviting Sam and Livy to an “exhibition of fancy dancing” on Apr. 28. Sam wrote on the envelope, “No answer, I think” [MTP].

April 14 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall, stressing that the news he was giving was to be kept to himself.

…we are going to Europe in June, for an indefinite stay. We shall sell the horses & shut up the house. We wish to provide a place for our coachman [Patrick McAleer] who has been with us 21 years, & is sober, active, diligent, & unusually bright & capable [MTP].

April 15 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam sent a note to Joe Twichell:

Dear Joe —

Stepniak is spending the evening with us — an interesting man. Come over, won’t you [MTP]. Note: Sam’s spelling for the pen name of Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski.

April 16 Thursday – According to Sam’s Apr. 23 to Kravchinsky, Livy left this day for Bryn Mawr College to retrieve Susy since the family was leaving for Europe in early June. She may have traveled with a servant or with Mrs. Beach, as before. See entry.

In Hartford Sam wrote a short note of introduction for Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century [MTP].

April 18 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Livy at the Radnor House, Bryn Mawr College, Penn.

Livy darling, Your welcome letter came, & I have talked to Jean & forbidden her to see Bessie to-day.

I am just home from the dancing-class, where I spent an hour & a half. It was very enjoyable. Jean danced well.

The Bryn Mawr packer left all of Susie’s things in the desk when he packed it. You can divine the result.

April 19 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote again to Livy at the Radnor House, Bryn Mawr College, Penn.

Well, sweetheart, I hope you & Susy are satisfied with yourselves, going away & leaving people this way. I don’t think much of it.

April 20 Monday – In Bryn Mawr, Penn., Susy Clemens wrote to her roommate and best friend, Louise Sheffield Brownell, now in New York City attending to a sick mother.

April 21 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote again to Livy at the Radnor House, Bryn Mawr College, Penn. Evidently Livy had written that Sue Crane was coming to visit. He complained that it was “getting pretty homesicky here” [MTP].

April 22 Wednesday – Sam read the story of “A Scotch-Irish Christening” at the Authors’ Reading, New York City, for the YWCA, as invited and agreed to on Mar. 22 to Annie B. Jennings.

April 23 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sergei M. Stepnyak (Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski), who had recently visited the Clemens home and sent a copy of his book, Underground Russia (1883). He divulged Livy and Susy’s timetable as well as their family “secret”:

April 24 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok, editor of the Ladies Home Journal.

If you will remind me again the 4th of June I shall then be at liberty to tell you where I am going to spend the summer, but I can’t tell you any earlier [MTP]. Note: Bok’s interview ran on May 16, 1891 in the Boston Journal Supplement; see entry.

April 25 Saturday – Howard P. Taylor wrote Sam proposing terms for the dramatization of CY [MTP].