Home at Hartford: Day By Day

December 19 Monday – In Cambridge, Mass., where he was staying to be near his doctor, William Dean Howells was recovering from a five-week illness. He wrote to Sam:

December 19 Wednesday – Sam wrote two letters from Hartford to Charles Webster. The first enclosed $271 and asked him to go to George Jones (editor of the N.Y. Times) and ask for the same amount and tell him that it’s an interview and that Sam wants to “build a magazine article & get that money back without any trouble.” Samuel Webster calls this mystery “intriguing.” Sam’s second letter may explain:

December 19 Friday – Sam, after meeting with Charles Webster, probably headed straight home for Hartford, although no documentation for this date has been found. Upon reaching home, Sam was in store for a surprise.

December 19 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Edward House about Grant’s Memoirs. “As I was expecting, the book has instantly taken literary rank at the summit of its class of literature” [MTP].

December 19 Sunday – Orion wrote, related his mistaking ammonia water for cough medicine with the resultant emergency:

My conversation is now almost entirely confined to nods and shakings of the head. The doctor (Jenkins) visits me here 2 ½ times a day and forbids my going out of the house, lest I take cold in my throat. My diet is milk, for which I yearn, but which I approach with dred on account of the pain and difficulty swallowing. Friday evening I was nearly unable to swallow at all.

December 19 Monday – From The Twainian Nov.-Dec. 1951, p.1 comes this piece of history in an article by Frank M. Flack of Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa:

“The January-February, 1946, issue of The Twainian reprinted the text of ‘Mark Twain’s Patent Adjustable Speech,’ as it was delivered on Forefather’s Day, December 20, 1887, before the Congregational Club of Boston.

December 19 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam finished the letter that he and Livy began on Dec. 14. Livy was “scouring around all the time, after economical Christmas presents” and,

All are well, here, except Livy & Clara & Susie Clemens & Theodore & me — & we are improving [MTP].

December 19 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam wrote compliments to Sylvester Baxter on his “admirable notice” in the Boston Herald for CY. He anticipated the visit of Baxter and Edward Bellamy on Jan. 3.

And I am so glad you said the appreciative word for Beard’s excellent pictures.

December 19 Friday – Sam’s notebook:

Dec. 19/90 Take the 9th Ave. Elevated, every time. Passes within 1 block of both the Xstopher st & Desbrosses ferries. Take West shore car to 9th Ave. station. From hotel door to the ferry stations ½ hour is plenty of time. Came to N.Y. in early train with Beecher [3: 596]. Note: Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, pastor of the Elmira First Congregational, was in Hartford. It’s not known if the two had business together in N.Y. or merely shared the same car.

December 2 Tuesday – Sam left Hartford and traveled to Boston, then on to Howells’ residence in Belmont, Mass. Charles Dudley Warner had lobbied for Sam to attend and accompanied him to Boston, where he then went on to visit friends [MTLE 4: 157].

December 2 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk to Sam.

December 2 Friday – Sam and James R. Osgood began a three-day excursion a little over a hundred miles to Quebec, arriving at night and staying at the old Russell Hotel (see insert; closed in 1925) [MTNJ 2: 413n181].

Sam wrote from Quebec to Livy at midnight:

December 2 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his sister, Pamela Moffett, who was in California visiting her son, Samuel Moffett.

December 2 Tuesday – Sam and Cable arrived at Albany, New York at noon. Governor and President-elect Cleveland requested an audience. Writing to Livy the next day about the meeting:

December 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, asking to be reminded should Webster forget to send the $2,000 that Howells had requested. Sam made reference to “these first days of publication” of Grant’s Memoirs and gave specific shipping numbers—another argument for Dec. 1 being the correct publication date.

December 2 Thursday – Arden Smith stopped at Sam’s house in a fifteen minute span when he was returning to the depot to bring a guest back. Sam had left for the wrong train and so went out into a “bitter blizzard” again. Smith, possibly a member of family friends, left this note:

December 2 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Cordelia Welsh Foote from Cincinnati:

December 2 Sunday – Mrs. Leonard M. Liebling wrote from N.Y. to Sam to settle a bet with her friends — had he published any books of poetry? A pair of gloves was at stake [MTP].

December 2 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to decline Richard Bowker’s Nov. 30 invitation. Bowker was in the forefront of the lobby for international copyright legislation, and his name is familiar today to anyone involved in publishing:

Blessed are the dead that died in the cause. I’ve really got to stay away, this time, & let the other boys conduct the slaughter [MTP].

December 2 Tuesday – Sam declined an invitation, likely from Herbert Gunnison (1858-1932), publisher of the Brooklyn Eagle, as he suffered from “a domestic affliction,” likely the Nov. 28 passing of his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon [Christie’s Lot 1 Sale 1083 May 24, 2002; avail online]. Note: Sam’s decline was in Gunnison’s autograph collection; Gunnison and Clemens were likely acquainted.

December 20 Saturday – John Munro wrote from Bathurst, N. Brunswick to Sam. “I note by the papers that you are troubled with twins and I now enclose you how to raise them successfully this like Mr Toodles…Wishing you the compliments of the season..” [MTP]. File note: see Fuller to SLC 23 Feb 80 & SLC to Fuller 24 80

December 20 Monday – Sam traveled with Twichell to New York City, arriving in the evening. They had a midnight oyster supper at the Tile Club, Francis Hopkinson Smith Studio, where Sam first met Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838-1915) [MTNJ 2: 360; AMT 2: 580]. Smith was an engineer and a writer whose hobby was painting.

December 20 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his sister Pamela Moffett.

Merry Christmas to you all. I enclose $25. Livy & I desire you to Christmasize it for yourself & Ma. We would do it ourselves, but we are at a loss to select.

Charley is here to-night, & is well. All our tribe are well & flourishing. I go to Philadelphia tomorrow—the last banquet I’m going to attend this year, anyway [MTBus 180].

December 20 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about a gift Livy was purchasing for her mother [MTBus 230].

Sam also wrote to Howells with the idea to write “a tragedy” together for the new Sellers play and enclosed a scene based on Thomas Carlyle’s Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches.

December 20 Saturday – The Dec. 20, 1884 article by H.B. Stephens, “Mark Twain’s ‘Dorg’,” which ran in Every Other Saturday, is available in The Twainian (July-Aug. 1953) p.3-4, and contains a letter from Sam to Stephens, as well as a reference to a prior incoming letter from Stephens, both letters undated and unlisted by MTP. The article (which seems to have had much input from Mark Twain) plus Sam’s letter with poem, “My Dog Burns” are given here in full:

MARK TWAIN’S “DORG”