Home at Hartford: Day By Day

December 27 Monday – Bruce W. Munro wrote from Toronto, Canada to Sam: “I beg to have the honor of sending you in about a week’s time a copy of my book “A Blundering Boy.” Munro asked for a brief comment from Sam on the book. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Review his book” [MTP].

December 27 Tuesday – Charles Webster wrote two letters to Sam; he rejected a single payment plan to settle amounts charged to his account by the embezzler Frank M. Scott. Webster claimed that Scott had charged $8,000 to Webster’s account when in fact he’d only drawn $4,000. But since Scott destroyed the cashbook holding the entry, it could not be proven. At the time the theft was discovered, Sam offered Webster $4,000. Webster said no to this idea because,

December 27 Thursday – Sam had received Baroness Gripenberg’s letter of Nov. 8 from Finland, where she’d had the one-legged goose story published in a Swedish newspaper. A correspondent to the paper had argued that the story was taken from Boccaccio’s Decameron, and accused Mark Twain of plagiarism, which upset the Baroness. Sam’s reply is noteworthy in that it explores his views on originality and plagiarism.

December 27 Friday – In Hartford, Sam & Livy thanked Olivia Lewis Langdon for books sent and for her usual generous Christmas check:

]Sam:] Mother Dear, accept my very best thanks for the noble volumes. The valuable part of our library is complete now.

December 27 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote what he later called an “ill-tempered letter” that should be torn up to Frederick J. Hall.

December 28 Tuesday – William A. Seaver wrote to Clemens. “My precious old bird: — / Haven’t you got a place for bores, loafers and snobs in Hartford called a Club? … I am twisting my wits to get stuff enough together to do a little article on Clubs, and would like to ring in Hartford” [MTP].

December 28 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Rev. Nathaniel J. Burton, longtime member of the Monday Evening Club.

December 28 Thursday – Sam shipped all but the “8th batch” of LM manuscript to Osgood [MTLTP 160].

Sam signed a power of attorney allowing Charles Webster to transact business in his name [ViU].

Arthur Von Rapp wrote from Painesville, Ohio asking for a loan of $200, which would “be barely sufficient to pull us out of the mire at present” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Begging letter”

December 28 Sunday – Sam took the train from New York in the morning and traveled all day. He wrote at 9:30 P.M from Pittsburgh to Livy. Cable had arrived on Dec. 27. Sam asked that a letter he’d left at Hartford from a “Chicago poetess” be sent on to him. He told of an attempt by the railroad to “curtail his liberties” after breaking some rule (possibly smoking).

December 28 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Jervis II, Julia O., and Ida Langdon, his nephew and nieces, thanking them for the “Spain” book, which Sam,

“…more wanted than any other book that could be named. It gives me nightly peace, now, & I think of you when I read it. / We have all been skating on the river today; no, Susy hasn’t; she has a sore throat; but the other three of us had a good time” [MTP].

December 28 Tuesday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam asking if they might approach Mrs. Custer to publish her book. He also proposed they buy the late General Logan’s book from his widow at a greater royalty than offered the General [MTLTP 211n2].

December 28 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster about the hiring of W.E. Dibble. Sam had jotted in his notebook a desire to return Webster’s salary back to $3,000 from the $3,800 that had been agreed to for the settling of $4,000, which was caused by the Scott embezzlement. Now he took the reins to the situation and suggested that Webster could donate the $800 toward Dibble’s salary:

December 28 Friday – Charles D. Poston wrote from Washington, D.C. to Sam on Dept. of Interior, US Geogical Survey letterhead to wish Sam a happy new year “with reminiscences of Salisbury and Ventnor” [MTP]. Note: Ventnor a seaside resort on the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of England; Salisbury large gardens there. On Dec. 28, 1873 Sam made a quick stop there to hunt up a woman. See entry, Vol. I.

December 28 Saturday – Sam’s notebook entry suggests travel:

[Chk #] 4399. Dec. 28. Ticket office RR, for 2000 miles, $40 [3: 537].

John (“Jock”) Brown, son of the late Dr. John Brown, wrote to Sam from Edinburgh:

December 28 Sunday – In Hartford † Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall about his “ill-tempered letter” he wished Hall to tear up, and about Daniel Whitford his N.Y. attorney. Though Sam blamed Whitford for allowing “Webster to make a contract without time-limit with [Watson] Gill,” he was useful to Hall as director of the bank.

But I would require him to employ assistance whenever a case is to go to court — have a lawyer whose face & manner are not a fatal influence with judge & jury [MTP].

December 29 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Robert Howland, trying to arrange a planned visit for “the early part of next week,” because Livy “succumbed this afternoon & took to her bed…” [MTLE 4: 186].

Scribner’s & Sons receipted Sam for subscriptions purchased Dec. 23 (see entry).

[Continue on to January 1880]

December 29 Wednesday – Sam declined an invitation from the Press Club of Chicago, writing from Hartford that the “formidable size of the trip in this mid-winter weather” would bar him from attending. He hoped they remembered him as well as he did them [MTLE 5: 242].

December 29 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood, enclosing a review of P&P by Rev. E.P. Parker that ran in the Hartford Courant on Dec. 28. Sam wanted Osgood to consider it for “a new and powerful circular” [MTLTP 148].

December 29 Friday – In he morning Sam went to his copyist’s house to obtain the missing batch of his manuscript for LM. He discovered she’d had scarlet fever, and they’d had to disinfect the pages. Sam wrote from Hartford to James R.

December 29 Monday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. Clemens included “Tragic Tale of the Fishwife,” and “Infestation of Phelps’ cabin with snakes and rats” [MTPO].

December 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mr. Handy, declining an offer of some sort.

“What with business & idleness unsystematically mixed, I seem to have to keep humping myself all the time” [MTP]. Note: Handy is not further identified. The famous songwriter by that name would have only been 12 years old.

December 29 Wednesday – Edmund C. Stedman wrote from N.Y. to Sam, a letter of introduction for his friend, a Danish sculptor Mr. Carl Rohl-Smith, from Copenhagen. Stedman wrote that Carl would go to Hartford the next day and hoped the artist would find the Clemenses at home [MTP].

December 29 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Webster & Co. That it would be best not to bind the Custer book just yet as it could not be canvassed; the better use of the money was elsewhere [MTP].

Meanwhile, Charles Webster answered Sam’s suggestion of Dec. 28 that he take a $800 hit on his salary to hire W.E. Dibble:

December 29 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Will Bowen answering a recent letter (unlisted).

I am exceedingly glad to know that your little people have come through safely & that the shadow has passed. … The children will be glad to get Mrs. Bowen’s Texan flowers & will be on the lookout for them with the interest of their sex in the nearest image which Nature affords of their sex. …. It is possible that my machine will be finished in a few days, now — but we never prophecy any more [MTP].

December 29 Sunday – In Boston, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam:

I have just heated myself up with your righteous wrath about our indifference to the Brazilian Republic. But it seems to me that you ignore the real reason for it which is that there is no longer an American Republic, but an aristocracy-loving oligarchy in place of it. Why should our Money-bags rejoice in the explosion of a Wind-bag?