Home at Hartford: Day By Day

April 13 Wednesday – Sam and Livy went to New York, where they attended the 100th performance of Taming of the Shrew, starring John Drew and Ada Rehan (1860-1916), at Daly’s Fifth Avenue Theatre. William Tecumseh Sherman served as toastmaster for a midnight dinner on stage, and introduced Sam who gave a supper speech, a recollection of his difficulty a few years before in getting into the theater and past a door

April 13 Friday – In Hartford Sam responded to Lorettus S. Metcalf, editor of Forum Magazine.

When I left you I found that Mrs. Clemens’s attack was diptheria — & that she was perilously ill. That stopped the Arnold-article on the spot, of course…. This afternoon one of the children has gone to bed ailing. These are not good times in which to write magazine articles [MTP].

April 13 Saturday – Sam gave a reading at Miss Annie Brown’s in New York City. He included “True Story,” and “Uncle Remus” [Fatout, MT Speaking 659]. This reading was to benefit the Society of Collegiate Alumnae, working to help lower class working women in the city [MTNJ 3: 468n211]. It was one of several charity readings Sam gave during this year.

April 13 Sunday – The Boston Sunday Globe, p.10 gave a glowing review of P&P with Elsie Leslie, which was in town for a two-week stand (See also the Globe display ad of Apr. 26, 1889, p.3.)

April 13 Monday – Arthur Crabtree wrote from New Britain, Conn. inviting Sam and Livy to an “exhibition of fancy dancing” on Apr. 28. Sam wrote on the envelope, “No answer, I think” [MTP].

April 14 Wednesday – Mary Keily finished her Mar. 27 letter to Sam [MTP].

April 14 Thursday – Emma E. Brewster wrote a postcard from Kingston, NY to ask Clemens how he pronounced his name, Clē–mens or Clĕm-ens? [MTP].

Jane Grey Swisshelm wrote from Hyde Park, Illinois to thank Sam for pictures sent, and to relate her difficulties in sitting 20 times in hope of a good portrait for a frontispiece in her book [MTP].

April 14 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood, arranging dates for the first leg of the Mississippi River trip.

“All right, call in Apl. 17—and start from New York, at 6 P.M., Pennsylvania road (ain’t it?) Hotel car all the way to Chicago—dam sight better than a mere dam sleeping car. How does this strike you?” [MTLTP 155].

April 14 Saturday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam & Livy including an accounting page of March expenses [MTP].

Charles Webster wrote estimating 3,000 LM books would be sold by June 1. Another rundown of numbers of old books sold. Orion had written that there was no general agent in Keokuk [MTP].

April 14 Monday – Sam gave a reading of an unfinished paper to be completed by each member at the Hartford Monday Evening Club [Fatout, MT Speaking 656].

April 14 Tuesday – Orion Clemens wrote: “I humbly apologize. / I did not expect you to write a letter, but merely send the photograph and autograph. I will send to Charley for the book for Fitzgerald.” [MTP].

George P. Lathrop for Am. Copyright League wrote “I happened to be in the Century office to-day, just after you had left. Now look here: this won’t do. If you can come down here just to attend to your sordid private interests, you can read twice for the Cause” [MTP].

April 14 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster, asking him to “stir up” the American Publishing Co., which had not sent Sam his April statement [MTP].

Prudence Crandall Philleo (1803-1890) in Elk Falls, Kansas, wrote to Sam to thank him for his past kindness to her:

April 14 Thursday – On this the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of President Lincoln, Walt Whitman gave a lecture at Madison Square Garden, including a reading of his most popular poem, “O Captain! My Captain!” (which he sometimes regretted writing.) Sam was there.

April 14 Saturday – Frederick J. Hall for Webster & Co. wrote to Sam, “sorry indeed to hear of the sickness in your family.” Hall wrote that Webster would be in Fredonia when the book was published and had volunteered to run over to Canada and register “on the other side” [MTP].

April 14 Monday – Mollie Clemens finished her Mar. 30 letter to Sam and Livy (clipping encl.):

I wrote the first of this upon the receipt of Livy’s letter — laid it down — and never got at it til now. Ma was quite comfortable for several days, but for three days is not nearly so well. Yesterday’s Gate City contained the enclosed printed letter. We suppose “Prince & Pauper” is in Chicago from this. Sam choose your own time to come, so you don’t put it off too long…Will you go to Elmira this season? [MTP].

April 14 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall, stressing that the news he was giving was to be kept to himself.

…we are going to Europe in June, for an indefinite stay. We shall sell the horses & shut up the house. We wish to provide a place for our coachman [Patrick McAleer] who has been with us 21 years, & is sober, active, diligent, & unusually bright & capable [MTP].

April 15 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Bliss. Sam had lost Hinckley’s address and asked Bliss to:

“…drop Hinckley a line & say the Postmaster General has responded favorably…therefore he can notify that fellow to retire from the pirate-book trade” [MTP]. See insert.

April 15 Saturday – Sam gave a talk at Boston’s Saturday Morning Club. Fatout designates this as “Advice to Youth” [MT Speaking 169-71] but Fatout prefaces this as “date and time uncertain,” the 1882 written later on Sam’s manuscript. Gribben notes that Sam urged youth to read only “good” books, such as Robertson’s Sermons, Baxter’s Saint’s Rest, and Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad [583].

April 15 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Henry G. Carleton (unidentified). Evidently Carleton had sent Sam a story for evaluation.

“In my opinion isn’t mainly a ‘humorous work’ at all…it is a fine & stately & beautiful tragedy” [MTP].

Sam also wrote a paragraph to his mother, Jane Clemens: 

April 15 Wednesday, before – In Hartford, Sam sent a note to James B. Pond asking him to send James Redpath $200, that he would refund it later [MTP]. Note: from the Apr. 15 note repaying this amount, which Sam wrote he “was forgetting about,” it stands to reason this request was most likely made at least a couple of weeks prior to Apr. 15, and should more properly be entered earlier.

April 15 Thursday – Moncure D. Conway wrote to Sam:

We are going to have a good time receiving Howells at our “Authors’ Club” next Thursday [Apr 22]. Can’t you come? … I hope you’ll be able to come Thursday, or the day before, — and we should be delighted if Mrs. Clemens can come (I have a good billiard table by the way) [MTP].

April 15 Sunday – Matthew Arnold died while running to catch a tram in Liverpool. He was 65.

In Hartford Sam began a letter to Robert Louis Stevenson, which he would finish on Apr. 17, in response to Stevenson’s Apr. 13 letter.

April 15 Monday – In Hartford, Sam wrote his thanks to Abraham G. Mills for the “good time!” he and Twichell had at the Baseball Dinner on Apr. 8. He apologized for “sliding out without a thank-you or a world of good-night to you” but they didn’t want to interrupt him so asked a Mr. Lynch to do the honors for them [MTP].

April 15 Tuesday – Sam inscribed a copy of HF to an unidentified person: Everything in this book is true — at least in measure. / Mark Twain/ Hartford/ April 15/90 [MTP].

April 15 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam sent a note to Joe Twichell:

Dear Joe —

Stepniak is spending the evening with us — an interesting man. Come over, won’t you [MTP]. Note: Sam’s spelling for the pen name of Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski.