Home at Hartford: Day By Day

May 21 Monday –Sam and James R. Osgood enjoyed the first two days of the Collender’s billiard tournament at Tammany Hall. The contests continued for some eleven days, with Maurice Daly the final winner [N.Y. Times, “Prizes for Billiard Experts” May 30, 1883 p.3].

May 21 Wednesday – Charles Langdon replied in NYC to Sam’s May 17 telegram: “Your message of the seventeenth to C.J. Kingdon has just accidentally fallen into my hands. I shall be here tomorrow. Start for home Saturday” [MTP]. Note: the name errors were ascribed to the telegram being sent by telephone.

May 21 Thursday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam & Livy: great hopes for Josie’s getting well; more about the Grant busts—he offered to sell “outright my share of royalty in Grant bust (Terra Cotta) for $10,000…and cancellation of indebtedness to you, reserving the right to withdraw this proposition after June 15, 1885, is that fair?” [MTP].

May 21 Friday – Charles J. Langdon wrote his sister Livy, mostly about business matters and the “encouraging outlook” financially [MTP].

May 21 Saturday – Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century Magazine. He’d read three letters written in response to “English As She Is Taught” and suggested Gilder publish a supplement to the article in the Sept. or Oct. issue, including the letters in question.

May 21 Monday – A tribute to the impresario Lester Wallack had been in the planning for some time (See New York Times Apr. 29, p.2 “The Wallack Benefit”), and Sam would have been well aware of it. He probably left Hartford in the morning.

Later in the day, at the Murray Hill Hotel in New York, Sam telegraphed Thomas A. Edison.

May 21 Tuesday – At the Hotel Vendome in Boston, William Dean Howells wrote a short note to Sam, enclosing a letter from Thomas S. Perry, who had taught at Harvard and was a regular reviewer of French and German books for the Atlantic under Howells. Perry’s letter related his and his wife’s time traveling through Italy and enjoying Innocents Abroad. Perry expressed his desire to write a serious article on Mark Twain.

May 21 Wednesday – In New York at the Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote to Livy that he’d just received both her letters, which suggests he’d been in the city perhaps earlier than Monday the 19th. Estimated here, the prior Thursday, or May 15.

I telegraphed you a while ago, before going down to get shaved, telling you I am going yachting to-day & to-night with Laffan, up the Hudson river & back. I ought to be starting, now, but I steal a moment to write you this line, & say again, as in the telegram, I like the outlook, & think it promises to accomplish things.

May 21 Thursday – In New York, Frederick J. Hall met with Samuel S. McClure who offered $12,000 to serialize The American Claimant in both the U.S. and abroad. The final contract gave McClure world serial rights with publication to begin Jan. 1, 1892. The story would run three months; Sam would retain copyright and could then publish as early as Mar. 15, 1892 [MTNJ 3: 625n192].

May 22 Monday – “Snowed a few flakes. We left at 1.45 east” [MTNJ 2: 480].

Sam and James Osgood left St. Paul, Minn. by train, bound for home [Powers, MT A Life 462].

The St. Paul and Minneapolis Pioneer Press ran a brief article on page 7 paraphrasing Sam’s mistrust of interviewers and the reasons for his current trip. There were no direct quotations [Budd, “Interview” 3].

May 22 Tuesday – After watching more of the billiards tournament, Sam left for Canada, reaching Montreal at 8:30 in the evening. He wrote from Montreal to Livy about a mix-up in the trains that caused him and Osgood to be on different trains [MTP].

May 22 Thursday – Charles Webster wrote to Clemens twice. First note enclosed John T. Raymond’s answer; Howells’ success in placing the play in Boston; how many cloth books should he contract? And how many in sheets? Second note: Crown Point trip & stock; working to settle with Osgood; paper costs; advised not to invest in stocks but in mortgages: “with all this scare here in N.Y.

May 22 Friday – Sam typed a letter from Hartford to Orion in Keokuk, Iowa, admonishing him not to send “any letter from the Gogginses or anybody else,” that he had no “interest in relatives born to me,” due to the fact that such interest required correspondence.

CORRESPONDENCE IS THE CURSE AND BANE OF MY LIFE, AND I CAN’T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF YOUR DIGGING UP RELATIVES GRATUITOUSLY TO ADD TO IT.

May 22 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to L.W. Bartlett for Putnam Phalanx, a Hartford military organization that had conferred a life honorary membership upon him. The Hartford Courant ran the full text of the letter on June 3, p.3 under “The Putnam Phalanx” article.

Hartford, May 22, 1886

Mr. L.W. Bartlett, Secretary.

May 22 Tuesday – Sam made a brief stop at the Edison Phonograph Company on Dey Street in New York, but did not find Edison in. He “spent an hour & a half with the phonograph on Dey street, with vast satisfaction” [May 21 and 25 to Edison]. Sam badly wanted to obtain a phonograph to dictate his writing (see May 25).

May 22 Wednesday – Sam gave a reading at Hartford’s Unity Hall, part of a benefit for the Talcott Street Church (“colored”), which was raising money for an organ. Sam included, “Skinned Man,” “Mate and Governor Gardiner,” “Whistling,” and “Interviewer” [Fatout, MT Speaking 659; MTNJ 3: 473].

May 22 Thursday – Sam returned to Hartford, probably this day or the next.

Daniel Whitford wrote to Sam:

Senator Ives, House’s counsel, asked me if we would be ready to try the case in the autumn — I told him we would let him know when the time came. He said that from a financial point of view he didn’t think either side could afford to try it and that he thought it was a case that ought to be settled. Whitford added he would see what their ideas were about settlement] [MTP]. Eugene S. Ives (1859- ).

May 22 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote a follow-up note to Julius Chambers of the N.Y. World. “Upon reflection” Sam felt he had “so little time left” (in the country) that he could not “sell any of it at all.” He felt there might be “more leisure” in “some future year” [MTP].

May 23 Sunday – In Boston, Howells wrote to Sam about the “Modest Club,” his stay in Washington and the effort for international copyright protections.

May 23 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Osgood & Co. He ordered two novels, Green Hand (1879) by George Cupples, and Sailor’s Sweetheart (1880) by William Clark Russell [MTNJ 2: 395n131; Gribben 168, 596]. Sam sent a check for $160.76 for past books ordered. Osgood had set up an account for such purchases [MTLTP 136-7].

May 23 Tuesday – Judge Caleb F. Davis, President of Keokuk Savings Bank & Trust, wrote to Clemens:

I write to remind you of my request, and your promise to send me your photograph, and the published sketch you mentioned. … /

May 23 Wednesday – Sam got up at 6:30 AM and went to Samuel E. Dawson’s (his Canadian publisher) house to borrow his “best black frock coat” to “wear it at luncheons in Ottawa”. Then Sam took an 8:30 AM train to Ottawa, arriving at noon [May 22 letter to Livy].

May 23 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Edward House. Commenting on an old controversy about who wrote a book Bread-Winners, Sam remarked:

      Gott im Himmel! I would delight to live in Japan; for my idea of heaven itself is a place where all the issues are dead ones, & no man, not even the angels, cares a damn.

May 23 Saturday – The Graphic (London) ran a notice:

“Humourists will delight in ‘The Mark Twain Birthday Book,” edited by ‘E.O.S.’ (Remington), which contains excerpts from Mr. Clemens’ writings. Each day is allotted several sentences, presumably summarising the character of the person who writes his name on the opposite page, such as ‘A Meddling Old Clam,’ or ‘She was attractively attired in her new and beautiful false teeth’” [Tenney].

May 23 Sunday – In Boston, Howells responded to Sam’s May 19 letter:

I never read a more pathetic story than that you tell me of your mother. After all how poor and hackneyed all the inventions are, compared with the simple and stately facts! Who could have imagined such a heartbreak as that? Yet it went along with the fulfillment of duty, and made no more noise than a grave underfoot. I doubt if fiction will ever get the knack of such things. How could it represent them? [MTHL 2: 569].