Hartford House: Day By Day

October 14 Wednesday – Hartford: Sam replied to the Oct. 13 of Louise Chandler Moulton, writer and family friend who hoped that Bliss might publish a collection of her stories.

October 14 Saturday – Twichell’s journal:

“Walked to Farmington and back with M.T. and C.D.W. [Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner] —a most delightful day. The delicious grapes at Mrs Whitmore’s, lunched at Mr. Gray’s and called on Miss Mary Perkins at Miss Porter’s school” [Yale, copy at MTP].

This entry of Twichell’s fits the day Sam went to hear Georgia Cayvan speak, though Twichell does not mention her. In his Nov. 20, 1906 A.D. Sam recalled Miss Cayvan after reading of her death:

October 14 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Perkins, offering to take the tardy engraving and pay no more than fifty dollars [MTLE 2:174]. (See Oct. 3 to 5 entries.)

Minnie L. Wakeman-Curtis wrote to thank Sam for his of Oct. 5; she understood his reply and that her father’s stories could never be the same in print as he told them [MTP].

October 15 Thursday – Sam represented the Hartford Accident Insurance Co. at a fancy dinner of the Hartford insurance industry for Cornelius Walford at the Allyn House in Hartford. He gave a humorous speech on accident insurance. The speech was included in Sketches, New and Old (1875).

October 15 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, whose Oct. 14 letter carried good news about his play starring Lawrence Barrett, a matinee idol. Sam had seen the reviews in the papers and answered:

October 16 Saturday – Sam and Livy returned home to Hartford [MTL 6: 555-7].

October 16 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to his attorney, Charles E. Perkins about the preparation of a list of taxable items for the Hartford tax assessors [MTLE 1: 129].

October 17 Saturday – Sam’s droll article, “Magdalen Tower” ran in The Shotover Papers (or Echoes from Oxford). The remarkable 145-foot tower at Magdalen College in Oxford had been one of the side-track subjects included in his Sandwich Islands lecture given in London during late 1873. The editors of the Papers requested that Sam write something about the tower for their publication.

October 17 Sunday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote to Sam.

October 17 Tuesday ca. – Xantippe (“Tip”) Saunders wrote to Sam (not extant) but referred to by Sam in his Oct. 19 reply [Oct. 19 to Saunders].

October 17 Wednesday – Kate Cowan, Chicago schoolteacher, wrote to ask Sam “for a few interesting facts” of his life for her literary group [MTP].

October 18 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Moncure D. Conway, who was on a four-month lecture tour of the Eastern and Midwestern United States. Sam asked that if Moncure received this letter, would he promise to run up to Hartford and stay with them a few days? [MTL 6: 557].

October 18 Wednesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam about “putting the Atlantic people up to a little enterprise,” –the publication of “one-number stories from the Atlantic” [MTHL 1: 161].

October 18 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Perkins, another communication on the engraving purchased five years before in London. Sam wanted Mr. D. Vorce to sell the engraving in New York [MTLE 2:176]. Note: engraving, “Christ leaving the Praetorium.”

October – Sam inscribed a copy of John Campbell’s (1779-1861) Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal (1874) [Gribben 126].

October – Sam’s unsigned sketch, “The Curious Republic of Gondour,” attacked suffrage and suggested weighted votes based on property and education. The piece ran in the October Atlantic Monthly. Sam sometimes preferred his more serious pieces to be published anonymously, so that readers would not suspect hidden humor connected with his trademark name, Mark Twain.

October – The German edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published in Leipzig by F.W. Grunow [Norton, Writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 90].

October – The first of a four-part, 15,000 word article on Sam and Joe Twichell’s trip to Bermuda, ran in the Atlantic Monthly: “Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion” [Wells 22].

October 18? Sunday – Livy and Sam wrote from Hartford to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Twichell came by for Sam to go walking, and both Livy and Sam wrote of it. Sam took Susy in “her little carriage.” He wrote in the afternoon, after his walk while Livy was resting. “The customary Sunday assemblage of strangers is gathered together in the grounds discussing the house” [MTL 6: 259].

October 19 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells who had sent him a review of Sketches. (Strangely, both Howells letter and Sam’s reply are given this date.) Howells wrote that reviewing a collection of stories was like “noticing a library.” Sam thought it was “a superb notice.” He talked of Livy planning a visit to Cambridge to see the Howells.

October 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his cousin Mary Ann Pamelia Xantippe “Tip” Saunders (1838-1922), who was born in Kentucky and studied art in New York. She was the first listing for “artist” in the 1874 Louisville phone book, and later ran an art school there. Tip had written asking to visit. Tip was the daughter of Ann Hancock Saunders, half-sister of John Marshall Clemens.

October 19 Friday – Davies & Co. wrote to Sam. “We have since writing on 12th received draft endorsed to our order drawn by you in London 4th Oct 1872 for sixteen pounds, in payment for the engraving ‘Christ leaving the Prætorium.’ The note is drawn on Mess Geo Routledge & Sons, London” [MTP]. Note: they denied ever doing a commission on a time schedule, as Twain had claimed.

October 2 Saturday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote to Sam that conflicts wouldn’t allow Sam’s visit the next Saturday [MTP].

October 2 Monday – The Hartford Evening Post ran Sam’s speech of Sept. 30 on page two, “Just Before the Battle.”

October 2 Tuesday – Sam gave a dinner speech at the Putnam Phalanx Dinner, Allyn House in Hartford for the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. “If you fight as well as you feed, God protect the enemy” [Fatout, MT Speaking 106-9]. Budd identifies the title as “My Military History” [“Collected” 1017].