Hartford House: Day By Day

February 21 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion in Keokuk, who had sent “random snatches” of a story he was writing. Sam judged the story to be “poaching upon [Jules] Verne’s peculiar preserve,” something Sam found distasteful and unwise. The story was about a descent into the middle of the earth.

February 22 Tuesday – Moncure Conway wrote from Cincinnati, Ohio:

February 22 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford, again to the editor of the New York World, with another lengthy diatribe against Charles C. Duncan. This letter ran on page five of the World for Feb. 25 [MTLE 2: 24-28].

February 23 Tuesday – The Hartford Courant published Sam’s letter to Joseph H. Sprague and Others, “Bread for Father Hawley’s Flock” [MTL 6: 392-3].

February 23 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Marx Etting (1833-1890), accepting his invitation of Feb. 19 to attend the Congress of Authors at Independence Hall, Phila. on July 2. Sam wrote he would bring “a brief biographical Sketch of Francis Lightfoot Lee of Virginia” [MTLE 1: 26].

February 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens about Orion’s “wandering, motiveless imitation of the rampaging French lunatic, Jules Verne.” Sam’s letter revealed some anxiety over Orion embarrassing the “family name,” meaning the name of Mark Twain, which he’d spent a lifetime building. It wasn’t decent to imitate an entire book, he wrote.

February 24 Wednesday – Twichell performed a marriage ceremony for Yung Wing (1828-1912) of the Hartford Chinese Educational Mission and Miss Mary Kellogg.

February 24 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam.

“I must see you somehow, before you go. I’m in dreadfully low spirits about it….I was afraid your silence meant something wicked” [MTHL 1: 218].

February 25 Thursday – Clinton Rice, attorney wrote from Wash. DC. Illness in his family had prevented a call on Clemens during his last stop there. His object was to remind him of Sam’s request in 1870 to correspond with Orion about the price of the Tennessee Land.

February 25 Friday – Sam’s uncle John Adams Quarles, once a prominent and well-to-do man of Monroe County, Missouri, died a poor man [The Twainian, March 1942 p5].

Mary Mapes Dodge wrote from NYC asking for a piece of writing [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Mrs. M.M. Dodge Editor St Nicholas”

February 25 Sunday – The New York World published Sam’s last letter on Charles Duncan on page five [MTLE 2: 24]. Sam ended his blistering attack on a so-called “law for the protection of seamen,” which gave Duncan his position as Shipping Commissioner of New York:

February 25 Monday – Sam gave a speech at the New York Press Club. The text is not available [Schmidt].

Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote to Sam. He’d been down with a cold but was better and had called at the Hamburg line office to secure passage on the Holsatia—the costs made him “unusually short” and wondered if Sam might help [MTP].

February 26 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Warren Choate & Co., that had asked to purchase the rights to the Jumping Frog story. Sam replied that he was “on the point of issuing it in book form through my publishers here, along with all my sketches complete” [MTL 6: 394].

Sam also wrote to William A. Seaver who had offered to report the results of Sam’s upcoming charity lecture.

February 26 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Moncure Conway, answering his Feb. 22 and confirming Conway’s visit for Mar. 9. Conway had finished a fall and winter lecture tour on “London,” [MTL 6: 600n1] and would leave for England on Mar. 11 to make a deal with a publisher for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

February 26 Monday – Howells had agreed to come for a visit, but his wife could not make the trip.

February 26 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Dean and Elinor Howells. Sam wanted to see his good friend before leaving for Europe. He asked if they could “run down here before March 25—any time…” Sam told of plans to leave for Elmira Mar. 25, and to sail for Hamburg Apr. 11. He added a PS with news that Bayard Taylor and family would also be on the Holsatia [MTLE 3: 21-2].

February 27 Saturday – Dr. John Brown wrote from Edinburgh. Much of the two-sided note is written over and illegible but he thanked Sam & Livy for two letters, photo and offered the “Megalopolis” twenty five kisses [MTP].

February 27 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George W. McCrary (1835-1890), Secretary of War under Hayes from Mar. 12, 1877 to Dec. 11, 1879, enclosing a letter of Sam’s outlining reasons why the Seaman Support Law should be ended.

February 27 Wednesday – Frank Fuller wrote to Sam on Woodruff Iron Works to Fuller Feb. 27 :

February 28 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam:

“Your giving up that river-trip has been such a blow to me that I have not been able to write until now. Mrs. Howells and I expect to appear at Hartford on Thursday, March 11, to afflict you briefly” [MTHL 1: 67].

February, late – John Gibbon wrote to Sam in late Feb., exact date missing, complimentary of the stage play of GA [MTP]. Note: General John Gibbon in Montana.

February 28 Monday – George Barclay wrote from Edinburgh to inform Sam of the “precarious” nature of Dr. John Brown’s health. It was doubtful the good doctor could ever resume practice [MTP].

February 28 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Bayard Taylor, who had recently been appointed as the new U.S. minister to Germany. Sam had learned that they would be shipmates on the Holsatia. Sam told him not to: “change your mind & leave us poor German-ignorant people to cross the ocean with nobody to talk to” [MTLE 3: 25].

February 3 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to P.T. Barnum, who Sam probably met in Feb. 1872. Barnum had asked Sam to “puff” his new Hippodrome, and although Sam thought it stupendous and that Barnum had remarkable “pluck,” he wrote that he couldn’t write the article at any price …

February 3 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford.

Dear Mark, / I have just refused to ask you to lecture or read in a case in which I would have hardly refused anything I could do but that. Mrs. G. F. Davis of Washington St, representing the Orphan Asylum now caught in a pecuniary crisis, is the party I turned away, not without regret and, I confess, considerable compunction. But I have sworn not to let my personal relations to you be utilized in that way. I had to do it in self defense, and in decency.

February 3 Saturday – Sam’s nephew, Samuel Moffett, arrived at the Clemens house for a visit of “two or three weeks” [MTLE 2: 13].