Hartford House: Day By Day

May 8 Saturday – Fanny Frazer wrote from Lexington, Ky. to give an account of quoting Mark Twain in the company of pastors about Joshua pushing the Canaanites out of the Holy Land. Her remarks were met with “derisive smiles” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “A simply-worded, well-written letter.”

May 8 Monday – Sam invited the Howellses and the Aldriches to join the Clemenses and Joe Twichell to share his box for Anna Dickinson’s “disastrous performance” of A Crown of Thorns, or Ann Boyleyn in Boston [MTHL 1: 134]. Neither Livy nor Twichell made the trip, the latter canceling due to arriving house guests, Dean and Sarah Sage.

May 8 Tuesday – Sam’s May 7 telegram to Parsloe ran on page one of the Washington National Republican [MTLE 2: 66]. Also in the Washington Evening Star (4-1) [MTP].

John Thomson Ford wrote Sam of the opening of Ah Sin and enclosed notices. His letter is on letterhead for the Treasurer’s Office of the National Theatre and Opera House:

May 9 Sunday – Livy wrote from Hartford to her mother: “Mr. Clemens is reading aloud in ‘Plato’s Dialogues’—so if I write incoherently you must excuse it.” Sam’s library included the four-volume 1873 edition [Gribben 549].

May 9 Tuesday – No further Boston activities were found.

Mary (Mollie) B. Shoot  (stage name: Florence Wood) wrote from NYC, enclosing a playbill for her upcoming appearance there. She’d noticed Sam’s recent stage role:

      I saw in the “Herald” that you were a grand success as “Peter Spyk”. Pray accept my congratulations (though it is late in the day to offer them.)

May 9 Wednesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote about Sam’s frustration at trying to see the President, of Orion’s letter and photograph, and of Sam’s play, Ah Sin [MTHL 1: 177].

November 1 Sunday – On this day or the day before, Sam went to New York and took rooms at the New York Hotel. His business in the city is unknown [MTL 6: 266n2].

November 1 Monday – Sam and Livy went to New York [MTL 6: 579]. A bill was paid to Farmington Creamery Co. for deliveries the prior month [MTP].

November 1 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Jacob H. Burrough, Sam’s St. Louis roommate at the Pavey’s in 1854, who had written about Will Bowen being remarried. Burrough had recently traveled through New York, and his letter to Sam recalled a young Sam Clemens. Sam responded:

November 1 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. Sam also felt Howells’ visit was too short, and hoped when he returned in December it would be a longer stay. Sam enclosed a piece that Joe Twichell got from a “Cleveland clergyman, who said it was very recent” for Howells consideration.

November 10 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Francis D. Finlay, of Belfast, Ireland. Sam and Livy had dined with Finlay on their last trip.

“Now one of these days you must come over here. Never mind the sea. Come over in winter, on skates. We are in our new house—& so are the carpenters—but we shall get the latter out, by & by, even if we have to import an epidemic to do it.”

November 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford a receipt of $355.86 to Routledge & Sons for royalties up to June 30, 1875 for The Gilded Age. The book did not sell well in England [MTL 6: 586n4].

November 11 Thursday – Charles M. Gall wrote from Ottawa, flyer enclosed announcing John Blaisdell as imitating Mark Twain. “Some time ago I was in Montreal where I saw a play produced, entitled ‘Mark Twain or the Innocents Abroad’. I do not know whether you have ever heard or seen the play….you would have been highly amused at the broad absurdity of the whole affair” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “About that piratical play”.

November 12 Thursday – A half-hour later than planned, Sam and Twichell set off at 8:30 AM to walk the 100 miles to Boston. Two and one-half hours later, Sam wrote from Vernon, Conn. to Livy.

“The day is simply gorgeous—perfectly matchless. And the talk! Our jaws have wagged ceaselessly, & every now & then our laughter does wake up the old woods” [MTL 6: 277-8].

November 12 Friday – Sam delivered a “prologue” to the recently formed Hartford Dramatic Association’s presentation of the play Our Best Society, by Irving Browne (1835-1899). Sam’s remarks included the “whistling story” about a stammerer curing himself by whistling; and parts of “Roughing It” lectures.

November 12 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Thomas Nast, proposing the same plan that he had turned down in Nov. 1867—that is, to lecture together, Sam talking while Nast drew pictures. Sam listed the 75 cities they would tour, and estimated a net profit from $60,000 to $75,000 to split.

November 13 Friday – Sam wrote from New Boston, Conn. to Livy.

Livy darling, it is bitter cold weather. We got up at half past 5 this morning, took breakfast & cleared out just as the dawn was breaking. It was a magnificent morning; the woods were white with frost, & our hands wouldn’t keep warm—nor ourselves either….We shall take the train & be in Boston at 7 this evening.

November 13 Saturday – James G. Bennett, Jr., owner of the NY Herald, wrote, “My dear Sir, / I understand that you have a copy of the reprint of Mr House’s letters to the N.Y. Herald upon the war between Japan and Formosa. If you would kindly let me have the book I should feel much obliged to you” [MTPO].

November 13 Monday – Sam read “The McWilliamses and the Membranous Croup,” “My Late Senatorial Secretaryship,” and “Encounter With an Interviewer” at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. Also on the program were Emma Thursby, a well-known operatic soprano, and a group of singers called the Young Apollo Glee Club [Brooklyn Eagle, Nov. 9 & 11, 1876 p1].

November 13 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion in Keokuk. Only the envelope survives [MTLE 2: 196]. Sam paid a bill from Osgood & Co. for a copy of Fridthjof’s Saga that he’d ordered on Mar. 20 and for Bayard Taylor’s The National Ode: The Memorial Freedom Poem (1877) purchased on Jan.

November 14 Saturday – Sam wrote from Boston to Livy about the “royal time at Howells’ last night.” He enclosed a hanky for the “Modoc” (he wrote “hakky,” as Susy pronounced it).

November 14 Tuesday – Sam gave a reading at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, for the Star Course of Lectures under Thomas B. Pugh. This reading was similar to his Nov. 13 performance in Brooklyn [MTPO: See advertisements in Philadelphia Public Ledger, Nov. 13 & 14, p1].

November 15 Sunday – Sam rested at the hotel while Twichell walked the nine miles to Newton Highlands and preached a sermon, then spent the night with Rev. S.H. Dana, a local pastor [MTL 6: 284n2].

November 15 Wednesday – Andrew Chatto wrote from England, likely enclosed in Conway’s of the following day. “The telegram to Belford Bros. that Tom Sawyer is English copyright must strengthen Mark Twain’s hands….But I imagine the serious injury to Twain is their flooding the American market with copies—against this no one can stand so well as Mark Twain himself” [MTP].

November 16 Monday – Twichell returned to Boston and with Sam and Frederick B. Allen, a Boston friend of Twichell’s. They attended an 11 AM meeting of the Radical Club. Walter Allen of the Boston Daily Advertiser probably invited the men [MTL 6: 284n3].