December 31 Thursday – Sam noted:
I’m out of the woods. On the last day of the year I had paid out $182,000 on the Grant book and it was totally free from debt [Salsbury 216 from Harpers].
William C. Prime wrote from NYC. “I heartily appreciate your great kindness. I would much rather call on you at your convenienc, than to give you the trouble of fulfilling an appointment at meine [MTP].
December 31 Friday – Frank Fuller wrote from New York touting three stocks, which he clipped and pasted newspaper quotes — Oregon R & N, Oregon S.L.. And Union Pacific [MTP].
Arthur C. Thornton wrote a fan letter to Sam from Richmond, Va. Thornton told of a trip to Washington during last summer and of relating each of Sam’s books to places and events there. Obliquely, Thornton asked for a book. Sam wrote on the envelope, “O, Sorrowful!” [MTP].
December 31 Saturday – In the morning, Sam left Hartford for New York, and “another troublesome dinner,” which he referred to in his Dec. 28 letter to Webster.
In the evening, Sam read a story (unknown) at the Author’s Club, Watch Night [Fatout, MT Speaking 657].
New York newspapers, including the Brooklyn Eagle, p.2 announced the January Century Magazine would contain,
December 31 Monday – Sam printed a notice for Livy:
To Mrs. S.L. Clemens.
Happy New Year! The machine is finished, & this is the first work done on it [MTP]. Note: False hopes are the most intoxicating kind. See also Dec. 29 about this first “copy.”
December 31 Tuesday – Sam attended the Author’s Club Watch Night event in New York City and told a story. George Cary Eggleston had invited Sam on Dec. 19 and recalled the event:
December 31 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam sent a note to James W. Paige wanting a talk to “help matters” relating to a new contract and the upcoming negotiations with Senator John P. Jones. Sam suggested 2:30 or 3 this afternoon and if William J. Hamersley could come, would Paige let him know [MTP]. Note: Hamersley had been a party in the earlier contracts.
Interestingly, Franklin G. Whitmore also sent the same request for Sam to Paige and Hamersley.
December 4 Thursday – Sam probably returned to Hartford late on Dec. 3 or this day. He described the visit as “intolerably short” in a Dec. 9 letter.
December 4 Saturday – Bill paid to Connecticut Valley R.R. Co., Hartford $1.22 for transporting “2 cases liquor; 1 box” [MTP]. The December bill from Western Union shows a telegram sent to New York, recipient unspecified (see Dec. 31 entry).
December 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Quebec to Livy [MTLP 409].
December 4 Tuesday – Sam’s letter which argued for changing the under-construction Statue of Liberty into one for Adam ran on page 2 of the New York Times [Budd, “Collected” 1020].
MARK TWAIN AGGRIEVED.
WHY A STATUE OF LIBERTY WHEN WE HAVE ADAM!
December 4 Thursday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Grand Opera House, Syracuse, NY [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Syracuse, New York to Thomas Nast, thanking him for the Nast family’s recent hospitality in Morristown, N.J.
“…do all your praying now, for a time is coming when you will have to go railroading & platforming, & then you will find you cannot pray any more because you will have only just time to swear enough” [MTP].
December 4 Saturday – In Hartford Sam, per Franklin G. Whitmore, wrote to Charles E. Lewis who had written Dec. 1 asking to negotiate dramatizations of HF. Whitmore replied for Sam that “while the story might be successfully dramatized & the character of Huck well personated by Miss Lewis,” that Sam was not interested [MTP].
December 4 Tuesday – In Hartford Livy wrote to Grace King, “delighted” in King’s two letters. Livy’s letter reflects the close friendship established between Livy and Sam and King. Livy related Thanksgiving with the Cranes, and Theo’s ups and downs of mood. She also wrote that Annie Webster, Sam’s niece was “now with us and is to be for a few days.” King was now staying with one of her sisters.
December 4 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Joe Goodman encouraging him to “come east & lay regular siege to Jones.” Now Sam was using Jan. 20 as the date “when the machine will go to work again.” In order to strategize about Senator John P. Jones, Sam urged Joe to “come east immediately.” Sam also called the Mergenthaler “so feeble an enemy” based on its average production rate of 2,000 ems per hour.
December 4 Thursday – Joe Goodman wrote to Sam: “I took a run down to San Francisco for a day to see Jones. He told me there would be no use seeing Hayward or Hobart as they had recently sustained a loss of upward of a million in some mining speculation.” Jones told him that he wasn’t going to deal with men who would have to struggle to raise a quarter million, but was “going straight to Westinghouse, Carnegie, Morton, Jay Gould, etc. any one of whom, if he could get him interested, could organize the company without difficulty” [MTP].
December 5 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Fuller, asking if he could get someone up to Hartford right away to fix the music box he’d ordered in Geneva.
Sam confided that he’d backed out of Slote’s speculation because his “lawyer insisted that it was risky” [MTLE 4: 168].
December 5 Tuesday – Filed with the US Patent Office: patent # 547,859: to James W. Paige: Machine for Setting, Distributing and Justifying Type [MTHHR 64n1].
December 5 Friday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Opera House, Utica, NY [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Utica, New York to Susy Clemens.
“Susie, my dear, I have been intending to write you & Ben for a long time, but have been too busy. Nach meinen vorlesung in Ithika…” [etc. the rest in German; MTP].
December 5 Saturday – In Boston, Howells answered that he’d received the check, but didn’t think he could keep it. His dilemma was that Harpers, whom he’d recently contracted with, would not allow him to have his name on the title page of another publisher’s work, and that if there was no definite plan to publish, he felt the money did not belong to him.
December 5 Sunday – The New York Times ran an interesting article, “Banquet Hall Orators” on p.4, which contained a story about Sam and a “joke” played on Senator William M. Evarts:
December 5 Monday – Sam’s twelfth and last presentation to the Monday Evening Club was the reading of a paper titled “Consistency.” [Monday Evening Club].
In Hartford Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto about the tax that the Inland Revenue Office assessed. Evidently there had been postage due on the receipt for the tax.
December 5 Wednesday – Mary C. MacDonald sent Sam a drawing of a tombstone in a freshy dug grave: “SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF A HOPE BORN AUG. 26 1888 DIED — ALL AONG [MTP]. Note: evidently the Century and others Sam had referred her to had rejected her artwork.
December 5 Thursday – Two bound copies of Connecticut Yankee were deposited with the U.S. Copyright Office [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, Oxford ed. 1996].
Under the headline, “THEATRICAL GOSSIP.” the New York Times ran an article on page 8 about the dramatization of P&P.
December 5 Friday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam, financial statement enclosed. “Books sent out during November, 1890, showing 6,359 total including 824 CY. Hall asked Sam to notice that they were selling “a great many of your old books published by the American Publishing Company. This is all owing to our new store scheme.” Hall explained why November was below the prior month — very few of the total books sold were done by general agents. Nearly all were sold directly by the firm [MTP].
December 6 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Henry Clay Lukens of the New York Press Club, declining another invitation. Sam wrote he was “booked for that day” [MTLE 5: 219].
Woolley’s Livery Stable bill of Jan. 2? Shows use of a hack this day for two and a quarter hours, $2.75 [MTP].