May 23 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:
Mrs. Stowe came on the Ombre & said “I am reading the Prince & Pauper for the sixth time.” She asked about such matters & I referred to Perkin Warbeck & Lambert Simnel.
She was already losing her mind [MTNJ 3: 290].
May 23 Wednesday – Zadel Barnes Gustafson wrote her third letter to Sam that she was sailing May 26 for England and hoped for a response to her prior pleas for help. Sam wrote, “God damn this tedious woman” on the envelope [MTP].
George C. Thomas wrote to thank Sam for his letter and the return of his MS, and especially for pointing out “some serious faults” in his composition [MTP].
May 23 Thursday – Daniel Whitford for Alexander & Green wrote to Sam, advising that “The contract has been executed by Mrs. Richardson and Mr. Frohman and in accordance with your instructions placed in the office safe” [MTP].
May 23 Friday – Rufus Slattery, secretary of the Elmira YMCA, sent Sam an announcement of an amateur photo contest. Slattery wanted to enter a photo he took of Sam, who responded through Whitmore on May 24 [MTP].
Henry (Harry) Edwards wrote from Dunedin, NZ to Sam, enclosing a clipping from an Auckland newspaper which promised a dramatization of P&P in Melbourne in the spring (US Fall). “The colonial rights have already been secured,” the article said. [MTP].
May 23 Saturday – Godfrey Egremont wrote to Mark Twain asking “why in German the sun is feminine — die Sonne — and the moon masculine — der Mond?” When he asked Germans they told him that Mark Twain knew “all about it” and wrote of it in a “valuable appendix –numbered II, I fancy, to a well-known ethnographical work by one of their most famous authors entitled ‘Der Landstreicher Verriest’” [MTP].
Harry Lamb wrote asking for a poem from Sam, who wrote on the envelope, “I don’t know what to say” [MTP].
May 24 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Congressman Rollin M. Daggett, outlining what steps of punishment a copyright law should take. If not both imprisonment and a fine, the fine ought to be doubled. Ignorance should not be a shield. Sam cited several writers who had been robbed by Canadian publishers, including five editions of Howells’ Lady of the Aroostook. “Now old man, let’s see if Congress will listen to the wail of the distressed” [MTLE 5: 115].
May 24 Tuesday – Sam’s May 19 transfer of 200 shares of stock to Frank Bliss (probably Am. Pub. Co. stock) was completed [ViU].
Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy that she’d received and kissed many times their photographs. Josie was very homesick [MTP].
May 24 Wednesday – On entering Philadelphia, Sam and Osgood observed a crowd had formed to gaze at an Italian laborer whose foot had been severed by a train.
“Our tracks ought to be fenced—on the principle that the majority of human beings being fools, the laws ought to be made in the interest of the majority” [MTNJ 2: 481].
May 24 Thursday – Sam wrote from Government House, Ottawa to Livy, about how well he got along with Princess Louise and how he’d tried hard not to commit any social blunders [LLMT 215-6].
May 24 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford, the last extant business letter to James R. Osgood. He’d received the sketches left out of The Stolen White Elephant. Though business had ended between the two men with Sam forming his own publishing company with Charles Webster, friendly relations continued, as evidenced by the sharing of Sam’s off-color story, 1601.
“I have mailed you a 1601; but mind, if it is for a lady you are to assume the authorship of it yourself.
May 24 Monday – Richard W. Gilder for Century Magazine wrote to Sam as “editor of the Century magazine” about “Lehman’s paper” having “strict attention in this office” though he didn’t know if it could be “made to suit all the editors of ‘The Century’,” naming Howells, Stedman, Roswell Smith, Johnson, Buel, etc. — in other words past contributors. It seems a light-hearted spoof of a letter [MTP].
May 24 Tuesday – William M. May wrote from New York asking Sam’s aid in collecting $240 owed him by Karl Gerhardt for the marble portrait he’d done of Henry Ward Beecher; May quoted Gerhardt’s Mar. 19, 1886 response that Sam was responsible for the debt since he directed its creation [MTP].
Charles L. Webster wrote to Sam enclosing a copy of their recent contract [MTP].
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
May 24 Thursday – Thomas A. Edison telegrahed Sam at the Murray Hill about his May 21 telegram.
Will be glad to see you this afternoon or any time to-morrow convenient to yourself. Am here all the time [MTNJ 3: 386n289; MTP]. Note in citation: “Clemens had already returned to Hartford, however, and did not see Edison until the following month.”
May 24 Friday – In Hartford, Sam wrote a long letter of celebration to Walt Whitman for his impending 70th birthday (May 31). The letter (part of Camden’s Compliment to Walt Whitman: May 31, 1889) reflects Sam’s belief in the fallacy of man’s perfectibility as witnessed by the many inventions and breakthroughs Whitman had witnessed in his life. Wait for another 30 years, Sam wrote and Whitman would see “Man at almost his full stature at last!” [MTP].
May 24 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote on Rufus Slattery’s May 23 envelope to Whitmore:
Brer, Tell him I would not object if it were a good likeness, but it is not [MTP].
Hamburg-American Packet Co. sent Sam an engraved invitation for a luncheon on board the new steamship, Normannia at the Hamburg Pier, Hoboken, N.J. June 4, 1890 at 1 o’clock. “Decline with thanks,” Sam wrote on the envelope [MTP].
May 24 Sunday – Mary Kimball wrote to Sam asking for an autograph [MTP].
May 25 Tuesday – City of Hartford, John E. Higgins town clerk, receipted Sam $2.15 for dog license for “male dog name Jifi [?]” [MTP].
The Hartford Courant ran a short advertisement for Fatinitza, tickets to be sold May 27 for the comic opera to be performed May 28. See Sam’s purchase of one ticket on May 27 for the May 28 performance.
May 25 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam inscribed The Poetical Works of Robert Browning to Susy Clemens: “These volumes, (in place of a promised mud turtle,) are presented with the love of / Papa / May 25, 1882. / N.B. The turtle was to have been brought from New Orleans, but I gave up the idea because it seemed cruel” [MTP].
F.A.O. Schwartz, New York, billed Sam $1.05 for “2 nurse bottles, 2 puffbones [?]” [MTP].
May 25 Monday – In his notebook, Sam drafted a letter in German in response to a letter from her sister asking if Rosina Hay, their ex-governess, was still alive. Sam answered of course she was still alive, happily married and now Mrs. Horace Terwilliger, Elmira New York. The letter may not have been sent. [MTNJ 3: 150 & n78].
In his Autobiography, this date is given for more dictation about Grant’s book, and the startling fact that without advertising, Sam wrote:
May 25 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam telegrammed Charles Webster, asking for a discount on “that sixty-dollar book that Orion wants,” and directing it be shipped without deducting his monthly stipend [MTP]. On the reverse of the telegraph form: “Check as usual. 155 — / P.H. Ghendun — 10000” which suggests the book was a bit more expensive than thought. The normal check at this time was $155 — $5 for Puss Quarles, $50 for Ma, and $100 for Orion and Mollie.
May 25 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster.
The new contract has arrived. Livy & I got more business-satisfaction & comprehension out of your visit than any amount of working through third parties could have furnished.
May 25 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Thomas A. Edison. His letter illuminates his telegram of May 21 and his quick visit to Edison’s on May 22.
Dear Sir: I had only part of a day at my disposal, but I shall try again, soon, & shall hope to find you on deck & still open to invasion. However, I accomplished part of my mission, anyway: I spent an hour & a half with the phonograph in Dey street, with vast satisfaction.
May 25 Saturday – A.B. Starey for Author’s Club sent a form letter to Sam that “the regular fortnightly meetings of the AUTHORS CLUB have been suspended for Summer recess” [MTP].
F.P. Chapin wrote from N.Y. to Sam that he would be in Hartford on Wednesday to see the Thorne typesetter at the Post Office. “I am told you are interested in a new one, for which orders are claimed, if so will you kindly inform me promptly” [MTP].
May 25 Monday – Sylvanus Lord of London sent Sam a rather strange and cryptic postcard, addressed only to “Mark Twain / America” stamped with a “deficiency of address supplied by NYPO” — Dear Sir — / If this reaches you you must acknowledge by return of post and you will hear of something to your advantage. / Yours faithfully” [MTP].
May 26 Wednesday – Invoiced by James Lidgerwood & Co., fine groceries, New York, 200 Concha cigars $21.70; Bill paid May 29 [MTP]. Sam would have had credit at this and other N.Y. establishments. W.H.