Home at Hartford: Day By Day

May 1 Monday – Sam, Cable and Harris spent the afternoon “at Cable’s red-and-olive cottage, surrounded by orange trees and a garden, on Eighth Street, on the lip of the Garden District” [Kaplan 245]. The crowd of children who’d come to Cable’s house to see their beloved Uncle Remus were shocked to find the red-haired man was white and too shy to read to an audience.

May 1 Tuesday – Sam began a letter from Hartford to Karl & Hattie (“Josie”) Gerhardt, that he finished May 3. Sam questioned Josie about her remark that Charles Ethan Porter had “gone to the dogs,” a remark he said for which “she gave no details.” Porter, a Negro, was to be forgiven sins more than a white person, he said, which says a lot about Sam’s evolution on race matters:

May 1 Thursday – Sam and Charles Webster executed “some kind of informal agreement concerning the publication of Huckleberry Finn” [MTLTP 169]. Sam would be his own publisher, through Webster. The Charles L. Webster & Co. was created as a new subscription publishing house during May [Emerson 153].

May 1 Friday – Sam spoke at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, for their Founder’s Day, reading the popular “Trying Situation” and “Golden Arm” [Fatout, MT Speaking 656].

From Susy’s unfinished biography (her spelling):

May 1 Saturday – William Dean Howells arrived at the Clemens home with daughter Mildred (Pilla) to stay the weekend [MTNJ 3: 230n8]. Note: the Hartford Courant May 3, p.2 under “City Briefs” reported: “Mr. W.D. Howells spent Sunday in Hartford with Mr. S.L. Clemens.”

May 1 Sunday – John Henry Boner wrote to Sam, thanking him for his “kind letter of April the 1st”; Boner had found employement as a proofreader with Theodore L. De Vinne, printer to the Century Co., and Edmund Stedman  “made me feel his house my home.” Sam wrote on the env., “Boner the Southern poet” [MTP].

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

May 1 Tuesday – Edward H. House wrote to Sam

May 1 Wednesday – Nineteen-year-old Therese Reichenberger wrote to thank Sam for his gracious answer to her prior letter. Sam reminded himself to “write her by & by” on the first page of her letter, and added a listing in his notebook of her Frankfurt address [MTNJ 3: 486&n16].

Reading in Volume 1 of The Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning, Sam noted his progress along the margin on p.225: “Begin here May 1/89” [Gribben 105]. (See Apr. 24, May 15)

May 1 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie, sending apologies to Mrs. Carnegie:

Oh, I am mighty sorry I left Sunday evening, but I got homesick, & hadn’t anything to do & nothing to read [MTP]. Note: Sam spoke at the Max O’Rell (Paul Blouët) dinner in Boston the Sunday prior.

Sam also wrote to John Garth, journalist, of his thoughts about lecturing:

May 1 Friday – Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers sent Sam $500 for the “Mental Telegraphy” article, which was published in the December issue of Harper’s. Sam had allowed Alden to set the price for the article [MTNJ 3: 620n168].

Katherine Jones for Elmira College Alumnae Assoc. sent Sam an invitation to lunch at Clark’s in N.Y.C. May 9. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Brer, decline it” [MTP].

May 10 Monday – Sam bought a copy of Sir Gibbie, by his British friend, George MacDonald [Gribben 442]. Lindskoog compares Sir Gibbie and Huckleberry Finn, identifying twenty plot elements in common [28]. Sam also purchased Jane Austen’s (1831-1894) Mrs. Beauchamp Brown (1880) from the same bookseller, J.R. Barlow of Hartford for $1.00.

May 10 Tuesday – Arnold, Constable & Co., NYC billed Sam $4.50 for “3 caps”, paid May 13 [MTP].

May 10 Wednesday – The CBR arrived in Memphis, Tenn., early in the morning. The time of 2 days 20 hours and 38 minutes out of New Orleans—even with the delay at Natchez, was the fastest time since the famous race between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez [Loges 6]. Sam recorded that he noticed “several sheds were blown down” from the storm, “& the hail stones were nearly 3 inches in circumf.

May 10 Thursday – George MacDonald wrote from Bordigera, Italy, once again urging Sam to join him in writing a novel [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Your Ph. Is very lovely. 2 plays & 3 books. & the whole summer engaged. Can’t forecast the future with all these (& other proposed) books (& Hamlet) in my head.”

May 10 Saturday – Sam had not forgotten the new Sellers play.

May 10 Sunday – In the wake of the rumor in the New York World, Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, admonishing him to “write nothing in any private letter to friend, relative, or anybody, which you do not want published.” Sam felt he’d been burned “so often, in my own experience, that I feel like warning & saving” Webster [MTP].

May 10 Monday – In Boston Sam went to the Howells’ residence, and after an hour talk with him, they came up with a plan for improving the Sellers as Scientist play and worked on it. He wrote Livy:

May 10 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote a one-liner response to a query or request from James B. Pond, one that makes for an interesting quotation:

O’ b’gosh I can’t. I hate writing. / Ever Thine — Mark.

Sam’s notebook entry: May 10, ’87. Charley reports Livy’s balance at J L & Co’s a trifle under $55,000. $3,847.14 subject to draft at any time [MTNJ 3: 288] Note: Charles J. Langdon & Co.

May 10 Thursday – Charles J. Langdon wrote to Sam, enclosing a draft for $3,649.85 [MTP].

M.N. Mallison, a journalist, wrote from Brooklyn asking to see Sam; he was going to London in June and wanted “a little advise concerning persons and things in London” [MTP].

May 10 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam. Sister Pamela had arrived and he wrote:

We made a confidant of her, after pledging her to secrecy. Afterward your letter of the 7th came. It was just as Pamela was starting for the hack, which had driven to the door. She was made acquainted with the contents of your letter and its printed enclosure…promising to keep silence, and especially by …agreeing to say nothing about the machine… [MTP].

May 10 Saturday – In Hartford Sam spoke at his Saturday Morning Club. His remarks were not recorded [Fatout, MT Speaking 659].

Robert Underwood Johnson wrote for Mrs. Hearst an invitation to Sam to dine at 7 p.m. this evening, or the next if that wasn’t agreeable. [MTP].

May 11 Wednesday – James R. Osgood wrote from Boston to Clemens. “I sold the story to Scribner for $400 with the understanding that if it should exceed 13 1/3 pages you should be paid for such excess at the rate of $30 per page [MTP]. Note: written on the env., “Osgood sells M.T. story to Scribners / A Curious Incident?”

Charles Webster wrote from NYC on Kaolatype Engraving Co. Letterhead to Clemens.

May 11 Thursday – The CBR arrived in Cairo, Ill at 11 AM [MTNJ 2: 476]. An old friend of Sam’s, John Henton Carter (“Commodore Rollingpin”) came down from St. Louis, and went aboard the CBR to escort him to his hotel upon arrival [Budd 39].

May 11 Sunday – Sam responded from Hartford to an unidentified person, that he could not “remember having ever been on a school committee in Virginia City…” nor did he “remember knowing a man in Virginia City named Freeborn.” Sam did know a man by that name in San Francisco and figured he’d be “quite sixty years old, now, if alive” [MTP].

May 11 Monday – Karl Gerhardt wrote twice, one to Sam & one to Sam & Livy, about medallions, his need for a small office, and his circular (on the back of the letters) for the Grant busts: (twice, one to Sam only). His second letter added that James B. Pond had offered a part of his office; Pond suggested a terra cotta bust of Henry Ward Beecher [MTP].