November 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, further explaining his telegram of the previous day:
“…Mrs. Clemens has a menagerie on her hands from now till Tuesday Evening—the preparation & achievement of a big lunch party of old ladies to meet her mother.”
November 4 Tuesday – Election Day. Sam, a Mugwump, voted for the narrow winner, Grover Cleveland, the first democrat elected president since before the Civil War. Note: for a scholarly treatment of the Mugwumps, see Gerald McFarland’s “The New York Mugwumps of 1884: A Profile” in Political Science Quarterly (Mar., 1963) p 40-58. In MTA, Sam remembered the pact he, Twichell and Rev. Francis Goodwin made to vote for Cleveland.
November 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote a letter from New York City to Annie Eliot Trumbull, daughter of Hartford historian and philologist J. Hammond Trumbull, who wrote the multilingual chapter epigraphs for The Gilded Age. The Trumbulls were family friends. The letter was entirely in German [MTP].
November 4 Thursday – In New York, on Murray Hill Hotel stationery, Sam wrote to a Miss Samuel, answering her letter and request for a photograph of him.
I arrived in the city last night, & found your letter — whose very complimentary request I take pleasure in complying with [MTP]
November 4 Friday – Samuel S. McClure sent Sam a notice of the Associated Literary Press program for the Anniversary program sketches for the next five weeks. It was not too late for Sam to send a piece. Sam wrote on the envelope, “The 5th time this has come” [MTP].
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 4 Monday – Dean Sage wrote to Sam that Parsons promised to join him the next day on his trip to Hartford to see the typesetter; Parsons would stay at the Allyn House [MTP]. Note: this implies that Sage and wife would stay at the Clemens home.
Clara Spaulding Stanchfield wrote to Sam [MTP]. A card in the MTP file says this letter “missing as of 1-87”
November 4 Tuesday – Robert J. Burdette wrote from Bryn Mawr, Penn. to Sam:
I came home to save the country and find waiting for me something I would rather read than the President’s message any time — a letter from you. Having saved the country and read your letter, I am off for the wars again. / Robert the junior said he saw you crossing the College grounds Sunday a week ago, but the rest of the family laughed him to scorn and said he had seen a spirit. But the phantom which we are now convinced that he saw, will always be a most welcome ghost at our material dinner table [MTP].
November 4–6 Sunday – Sam returned to Hartford during this period.
November 5 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to U.D. at the W.K. Carson Co., Baltimore, Maryland. U.D. had evidently asked for a biographical sketch. Sam referred him to the listing in Men of the Time, by Routledge, or Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors [MTLE 4: 125].
November 5 Friday – The November bill from Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co. shows a telegram sent to Boston (party unknown, see Dec. 1 entry for others).
November 5 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam about failed brass castings made by Adams [MTP].
November 5 Sunday – The New York Times, under “LITERARY NOTES” page 3:
—The announcement that a new work on American humor by Mark Twain and W.D. Howells is in the press is somewhat premature. No such book has as yet been written, and as Mr. Clemens has still in his possession two completed manuscripts, it is difficult to say when a still unwritten book is likely to appear.
Note: This may have been planted by Sam to discourage questions about what would become The Library of Humor.
November 5 Monday – The missing telegram from Howells turned up at the telegraph office (see Nov. 7 entry).
Kate D. Barstow wrote what is now a letter too faded to read. Likely another request for funds for activities beyond her medical training, because Sam wrote on the env., “No” [MTP].
November 5, 1884 to February 28, 1885 – Mark Twain and George Washington Cable went on a grand tour,” Twins of Genius” tour, with over 100 engagements, managed by James B. Pond. Sam read and delivered passages from numerous works including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Celebrated Jumping Frog, and others. Cable read from Dr. Sevier and sang Creole songs.
Luckily both men wrote their wives almost daily, and most of those letters have survived.
November 5 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote check rec’d for $155. “Jean’s letter was very interesting. Tell her to write again”[MTP].
Rollin M. Daggett wrote from Washington DC about having Sam publish a book of “fifteen or twenty legends of love, chivalry and barbaric pomp, extending back for over seven hundred years,” he was preparing with King Kalakana of Hawaii [MTP].
November 5 Friday – General James Barnet Fry wrote from N.Y. to Sam:
November 5 Saturday – Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (son of author) accepted the Clemenses offer to visit them with his family in Hartford on Nov. 10 [MTNJ 3: 341n125].
Sam’s notebook: Bal. Nov. 5, 10, 224.41 [MTNJ 3: 345].
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 5 Tuesday – Sam went to New York with William Dean Howells. “Personal Intelligence” column in the New York Times, Nov. 5, p.5:
Samuel L. Clemens of Hartford is at the Victoria Hotel. [Note: Sam’s usual hotel during this period was the Murray Hill, which did not disclose Sam’s presence there for the newspapers to print. The Victoria may have been Howells’ preference].
November 5 Wednesday – Among those sending condolences on the death of Jane Clemens, Laurence Hutton’s note is not extant. Sam answered it today:
I thank you for the kind & sympathetic words. My sorrow was appeased when I saw the serene face in the coffin, every trace of care gone from it, & only repose & peace visible there [MTP].
William Winter also wrote on Oct. 28. Sam thanked him and observed:
November 6 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Hjalmar Boyesen of Ithaca, New York. Boyesen and family had been in Paris at the same time as the Clemens family. Sam listed the letters he had written Boyesen after being informed by a “fine young fellow” named Bacon that he hadn’t answered Boyesen’s letters. Sam wrote that their “unpacking room looks like a furniture hospital” [MTLE 4: 127].
November 6 Saturday – Wm. Wander, pianos in Hartford, billed $200.00 for “Fischer piano style e” paid. Note in MTP 1880 financial file: “Schoolroom piano Christmas present to children.”
The November bill from Western Union shows a telegram sent by Sam to Boston, probably to Howells before leaving Hartford (see Nov. entry).
November 6 Sunday ca. – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood on Webster’s Nov. 5 letter about making fine brass casts. Sam admitted:
“The patterns for my book cover were coarse & awkward because they were done in such a hurry” [MTP].
November 6 Monday – James R. Osgood wrote to Sam wanting Webster to come to Boston and arrange all the details for LM publishing [MTP].