April 16 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mollie Fairbanks, asking for the date of her visit and the train she’d be on so he might be at the station to meet her [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Laura C. Redden Searing, who wrote on Apr. 13, seeking advice on subscription book-selling. Sam advised:
April 16 Sunday – Sam returned to Hartford, where he wrote Howells.
O dear! I came home jubilant, thinking that for once I had gone through a two-day trip & come out without a crime on my soul: but it was all a delusion, nothing but a delusion—as I soon found out as I glided along in my narrative of how Aldrich—but no, I have suffered enough already, though Mrs. Clemens’s measureless scorn & almost measureless vituperation.
April 16 Monday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to George W. Cable. Livy was not getting better and didn’t eat much so couldn’t get stronger. Sam intended to have her “travel on a mattress” to Elmira and “see if her mother can nurse her back to health.” Again Sam cautioned George to require money in advance from “those thieves” (probably the Mallory brothers) for a performance Cable had agreed to:
April 16 Wednesday – In his letter to Aldrich of Apr. 10, Sam cited a dinner engagement with that he and Livy could not get out of for this evening, where they were to “meet some strangers who will be unmeetable later.”
Sam wrote a one-liner to Charles Webster: “Find out where Parsloe is, & drop a line & tell him I’ve got a play to show him which may possibly suit him & Louis Aldrich” [MTP].
April 16 Thursday – John Linahan wrote from St. Louis to suggest a subject for the next book: a Comic History of the U.S. [MTP]. Readers would have to wait for Stan Freburg on this one.
April 16 Friday – Sam, Livy and “a couple of friends,” went to New York City for the weekend [MTHL 2: 554n3].
April 16 Saturday – Jackson P. Singleberry, editor and proprietor of the Horse Head county Boom wrote to Sam, the humorous letter cajoling a contribution from Twain being in The Arkansas Traveler of this date [MTP]. Note: This looks suspiciously like a spoof.
April 16 Monday – Louise M. Madden wrote from Chicago for Sam’s autograph [MTP].
L.. Loisette for Loisettian School wrote to Sam that he was going to “reply to the unmemorial blackguards who beginning a few years ago with slight misrepresentation have advanced from my silence & forebearance to lies pure & simple” [MTP].
April 16 Tuesday – Dora Wheeler wrote to Sam about the photographs her friend Teddy Hewitt had made of him. “Teddy says he will make over any plates you want to you.” Hewitt turned all his negatives over to C.C. Cox, the photographer who Stedman had hired to work on the Library of American Literature [MTNJ 3: 470n222].
April 16 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam telegraphed Joe Goodman in Fresno, Calif.
TAKE THE EARLIEST TRAIN EAST YOUR BUSINESS WILL POSSIBLY ALLOW JOE I THINK IT WILL PAY FIRST RATE ANSWER [MTP].
In the evening the Clemens family sans Jean went to a Nook Farm wedding; Miss Mary Robinson and Louis R. Cheney tied the knot [Salsbury 276]. Livy described the decorations at the wedding in a letter to her mother on Apr. 20.
April 16 Thursday – According to Sam’s Apr. 23 to Kravchinsky, Livy left this day for Bryn Mawr College to retrieve Susy since the family was leaving for Europe in early June. She may have traveled with a servant or with Mrs. Beach, as before. See entry.
In Hartford Sam wrote a short note of introduction for Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century [MTP].
April 17 Saturday – The Saturday Review ran a long, mixed critique of TA, finding praise and fault [Budd, Reviews 183-6].
Pamela Moffett wrote to Sam (postmarked Apr. 17), complimenting him on TA; noting that “Ma can’t read as it made her head hurt and they couldn’t read to her since she was hard of hearing.” Also, “Charley has had the clock fever,” buying and restoring old clocks to sell. Did Sam recall the clock at the Quarles farm? [MTP].
April 17 Monday – Sam left Hartford with 37-year-old Hartford schoolteacher Roswell Phelps, hired stenographer. Phelps was to take down Sam’s impressions of the trip, and also letters of Sam’s ongoing business matters [Kaplan 244]. The men were bound for St. Louis and the Mississippi River, where Sam’s decade-old dream (since at least Jan.
April 17 Sunday – In Boston, Howells wrote to Sam about Osgood and questions of the contemplated Library of Humor, about being pressed to finish his novel, A Modern Instance, being serialized in the Century Magazine; and about another proposed work for Sam, an etiquette book [MTHL 1: 361-2].
April 17 Tuesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to James R. Osgood. A dispute had arisen between Charles Webster, Sam and Osgood. Sam held to the belief as almost a maxim, that the big sale took place before issue, not after. Though once true for subscription books, it no longer was certain. Webster wrote on Apr.
April 17 Thursday – Sam and Livy were scheduled to travel to Boston on this day and be entertained at the Aldrich home (see Apr. 10 entry). They may have gone on Apr. 16 as Sam wrote to his mother, Jane Clemens, on Apr.15. See Apr. 22 for Twichell’s journal entry for Apr. 17.
April 17 Saturday – In New York City, Sam and Howells met to arrange Howells’ visit to Hartford, which did not occur until May 1-2 weekend. In the evening the Clemens party took in The Mikado, the first American run of the D’Oyly Carte Mikado, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre [MTHL 2: 554n3 from an entry in Susy’s unfinished biography dated Apr.
April 17 Sunday – In Hartford Sam telegraphed Augustin Daly that he would be there [MTP]. Just where he did not say.
Sam also wrote to Charles Webster. Even after Webster’s “demands” of Apr. 1, Sam was happy with the way things were going:
April 17 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam finished his Apr. 15 letter to Robert Louis Stevenson. Livy was better (Sam likened her to a battered ship “slowly undergoing repairs”), and would be out of her sick room in about a week he thought.
April 17 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon, in poor health but coming for a visit. Sam told her of Livy’s needed rest for pinkeye and being under the care of Dr. William T. Bacon. Sam wrote of the “good season” and the “blackbirds in full bloom…Summer threatens to break on us now, any day & make everything beautiful.” He also advised her to bring her “other dress along,” for a “grand charity ball” at Mrs.
April 17 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Edgar W. (Bill) Nye, answering his Apr. 11:
I am just your man! I expect Joe Goodman East before many weeks, & when he comes, we’ll foregather, you & Riley & Joe & I, & just have an elegant time — a time that will beggar description, if that it the right literary phrase & sufficiently unhackneyed; & if it ain’t, we’ll substitute a time that will cast a gloom over the whole community [MTP].
April 18 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Livy at the Radnor House, Bryn Mawr College, Penn.
Livy darling, Your welcome letter came, & I have talked to Jean & forbidden her to see Bessie to-day.
I am just home from the dancing-class, where I spent an hour & a half. It was very enjoyable. Jean danced well.
The Bryn Mawr packer left all of Susie’s things in the desk when he packed it. You can divine the result.
April 18 Sunday – Ola A. Smith (b. ca. 1854) wrote from Haverhill, Mass:
Mr. Clemens, / Gracious Sir;–
You are rich. To lose $10.00 would not make you miserable.
I am poor. To gain $10.00 would not make me miserable.
April 18 Monday – Charles Webster wrote from Fredonia that it would take him until Saturday to “arrange his affairs,” then he could stay longer when he came. He related judgments about Slote’s employee, Robb, “who was a good designer & engraver and understands his business.” He also related experiments with Kaolatype, using an iron plate and a glass plate. He was getting familiar with Sam’s various business interests, so he might take them over [MTP].
April 18 Tuesday – At 8 AM, Sam, Osgood, and Phelps left New York on the Pennsylvania Railroad. They would travel through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, then St. Louis. Sam noted in the evening:
“Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop gradually out of it as one travels away from New York” [Ch. 22, LM].