October 31 Wednesday – Virgil A. Pinkley for College of Music of Cincinnati wrote to Sam sending a copy of their new work, Essentials of Elocution and Oratory as thanks for permitting him “to choose so freely from your compositions.” Sam wrote, “No Answer” on the envelope [MTP].
Home at Hartford: Day By Day
November – This month’s issue of Scribner’s Magazine carried excerpts from the Personal Memoirs of P.H. Sheridan, but without the footnote agreed to the previous August, giving Webster & Co. credit for the work. Sam’s notebook:
Scribner gives us no credit. Why? [MTNJ 3: 429n74].
November 1 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
November 2 Friday – It’s not clear whether Sam and Livy had been in New York since Oct. 25, but more likely is that they returned to Hartford by Saturday Oct. 27, and that Sam then returned to the City by this day when he wrote a short letter to Edmund C. Stedman. Not quoted from the letter is that Sam returned to Hartford by the 4 p.m. train after visiting the Cranes, who were still in New York. Stedman wrote Sam on Oct.
November 3 Saturday – In Hartford Sam received a letter from Will Bowen (evidently lost) just as he was
November 4 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Will Bowen, old Hannibal friend, relating his reflections of the previous evening at a wedding. Sam then wished Bowen could have stayed longer, and the next time to bring his wife along. The Bowens had just lost a child and the others were sick. Sam comforted his old friend, touching on the pain of his own loss of a son:
November 5 Monday – All was not well at Webster & Co., even after the resignation of Charles Webster. Arthur H. Wright wrote two letters to Sam, one of which was marked “CONFIDENTIAL”:
There are a number of points which it would be well for us to talk about at your earliest convenience, which are of great importance to you and should be investigated at once.
November 6 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to George W. Smith, willing to take on his cause against “those Ohio people” and write a letter for him. Sam had seen “some more of it in the ‘Times’ this evening.”
November 8 Thursday – Thomas Sharp, an Army officer, wrote a longish letter to Sam. His brother was the brother in law of Gen. Grant and U.S. Marshall of the District of Columbia, and he thought Sam possibly had met him. He was prompted to write after a re-reading of LM, and sketched his life story, asking only if Sam were in California to look him up [MTP].
November 9 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Richard Malcolm Johnston after hearing that Johnston would be visiting the Charles Warner’s the next Thursday, Nov. 15.
I beg that you will cross the lot to our house on Saturday [Nov. 17] & stay over Sunday [MTP].
November 10 Saturday – Frederick E. Church wrote from Hudson, N.Y. to Sam enclosing a bag of Colima Mexican coffee that Livy complimented when they were guests of the Church’s in June 1887. Church offered to send future orders for “the genuine berry” to a friend in Mexico [MTNJ 3: 489n27; MTP].
Frederick J. Hall for Webster & Co. wrote to Sam.
November 12 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote two letters to Frederick J. Hall, the first a confidential treatment about Arthur H. Wright’s recent visit (date not found) to Hartford and their conversation. Sam wasn’t going to advise Hall what to do with Wright, saying only that if Wright was valuable in the subscription department to use him there.
November 13 Tuesday – Sam was receipted $60 total for fees and dues connected with The Players Club, New York; in advance to May 1, 1889. Note: $20 crossed out and $10 written; signed by William Bispham; one hundred crossed out — so total was 60, or half of the normal dues [MTP; MTNJ 3: 429n73].
November 15 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Augustin Daly. Grace King had completed a dramatization of her novel, Monsieur Motte, and Sam wanted to bring her to New York the next Tuesday (Nov. 20) to introduce her.
November 16 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short letter of compliment to Grace King on her novella, “Earthlings,” which ran in the November issue of Lippincott’s Magazine. The theme of King in this work and in Monsieur Motte, was that of worthy New Orleaneans and their struggles after the Civil War.
Dear Miss King:
November 17 Saturday – Orion and Mollie Clemens began a letter to Sam & Livy they finished on Nov. 19 (letter enclosed from Dr. J.M. Clemens in Louisville, Ky. & Orion’s Gate City clipping enclosed); Orion reported he’d received books, was reading the Library of Humor, which he was reading part of to Ma. He wrote some details of the house transaction which was not completed; and regrets about the Tennessee Land.
November 19 Monday – Orion and Mollie Clemens finished a letter to Sam & Livy they began Nov. 17 (annotated, letter & clipping enclosed);
William H. Wiegel, an old, wounded veteran with six children wrote asking Sam for a loan of $35; he had a $1,500 claim against the government that would be settled. A return envelope was unused [MTP].
November 20 Tuesday –Grace King wrote to her sister May King McDowell of the excursion to New York with the Clemenses:
November 21 Wednesday – In New York, the Clemens family (less Susy) and Grace King, and also possibly William Dean Howells, spent the morning looking at the paintings of a Russian realist of warfare, Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (1842-1904). From Grace’s Nov. 22 to her sister May:
November 22 Thursday – The Clemens family returned to Hartford sometime between Nov. 21 and 23, probably this day.
November 23 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion, thanking him for hickory nuts sent and announcing he’d ordered the Library of American Literature sent to him and also Samuel Moffett as the Clemens family’s Christmas presents. Orion had failed to purchase a house he and Mollie had wanted, and Sam sent advice:
November 24 Saturday – Augustin Daly wrote to Sam that he did not find a play in Grace King’s Monsieur Motte [Bush 45].
George W. Green for Am. Copyright League wrote to Sam announcing Sam had been “unanimously elected a member of the council” at their Nov. 12, 1888 meeting [MTP].
November 25 Sunday – Richard Malcolm Johnston wrote to Sam “(For Mrs. Clemens)”… “mighty glad” that he went to Hartford, thanking for hospitality from “Happy people…up there in that lovely suburb…” [MTP].
November 26 Monday – Sam took Grace King to visit Smith College in Northhampton, Mass., where he evidently gave a reading. A list in his notebook for Smith included items for his talk/reading: Brer Rabbit, Golden Arm, Whistling story, Christening story, Browning’s Horse-race. In a letter the following day to her sister Nan, King described the trip to the railroad station:
November 27 Tuesday – Livy’s 43rd birthday – Livy wrote of the day:
I had a very pleasant birthday the children fixed me a very pretty table with flowers and their gifts and we had an exceedingly good time
Sam wrote the following note, perhaps with a gift:
Livy darling, I am grateful — gratefuller than ever before — that you were born, & that your love is mine & our two lives woven & welded together! SLC [LLMT 251].