Home at Hartford: Day By Day

February 12 Friday – Susy Clemens wrote of misgivings about her father’s neglect of his own writing:

February 12 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Rev. John W. Chapman, who wrote on Feb. 7 of Jesse Madison Leathers’ death.

I never saw Leathers, but was acquainted with him through a forced correspondence.

February 12 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: Take the limited Tuesday a.m. at 9.50 arrive at Albany 1.10 p.m. [MTNJ 3: 448].

Kittridge Wheeler for South Baptist Church wrote Sam, thanking him for his Feb. 9 reading, and helping “The People’s Lecture Course, with your name, your presence, your influence, your popularity, and your reading…. Your name gave us a prestige — a place to begin and something to begin with” [MTNJ 3: 445n126].

February 12 Wednesday – Sam and Livy went to New York to see if Dr. Roosa could help Livy with her eyes, which she’d had problems with for the last year. They stayed at the Murray Hill Hotel. Sam saw Daniel Frohman and advised him that he and Livy would call on Abby Sage Richardson the following morning. They’d been unable to accept an earlier breakfast invitation from her [Feb. 19 to Richardson].

February 12 Thursday – In Hartford Sam undoubtedly let loose some of his anger over the typesetter in a letter to the Hartford Gas Company. This letter suggests Livy was not yet home.

February 13 Sunday – In Belmont, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam. After resigning as Atlantic editor, Howells now announced an agreement with Osgood for a weekly salary enough to afford him full time for writing. His daughter, Winny, was better, and was in Boston with the wife [MTHL 1: 348-9].

February 13 Monday – Dan Slote died. The New York Times obituary of Feb. 14:

February 13 Tuesday – Bessie Stone wrote from Auburndale, Mass. concerned about Sam’s soul: “I expect that the Lord Jesus will knock at the door of your heart this week (Rev. 3, 20), and please let Him in” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “D— fool”; Rev. 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

February 13 Wednesday – Sam and Cable breakfasted together and spent four hours talking in Sam’s library. It was the first idle day in four weeks, in which time Sam wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer play and made progress on a dramatization of P&P, neither of which he was able to sell [MTHL 2: 471].

February 13 Friday – At 9 A.M. Sam wrote from Detroit, Michigan to Livy, whose last letter transmitted a hint by some Hartford charity for Cable to perform for their benefit.

February 13 Saturday – In Hartford working away at Connecticut Yankee, Sam wrote to Charles Webster, instructing him to have the manuscript typed up that became McClellan’s Own Story in 1887 for William C. Prime. Sam’s pen was hot on the new story and he didn’t want to lose even a day going to New York on business. He thought Prime would understand.

February 13 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam and enclosed a proof for his “Editor’s Study” for the May issue of Harper’s as to why the public cared for Mark Twain’s books “in prodigious degree” — “under every fantastic disguise they are honest and true.” Howells also touched upon an old issue:

February 13 Monday – From Sam’s notebook, referring to this day:

Feb. 16, 1888. On the 13th we at last got Webster to retire from business, from all authority, & from the city, till April 1, 1889, & try to get back his health. How long he has been a lunatic I do not know; but several facts suggest that it began in the summer or very early in the fall of ’85, — while the 1st vol of the Grant Memoirs was in preparation & the vast canvass [MTNJ 3: 374].

February 13 Wednesday – Sam and Livy spent the day in Albany with the Dean Sage family.

Mary E. Cary, bed-ridden, wrote a “begging letter” from Brooklyn: “Do you think the enclosed worth any little sum?” [MTP].

February 13 Thursday – Sam and Livy intended to return home this day but Livy “got hit with tonsillitis” and was under the care of Dr. Rice (see Feb. 16 to Crane; also MTNJ 3: 539n175).

A. W. Lang wrote from Hartford to ask Sam to buy shares in a local baseball publication. Whitmore wrote on the letter: “Answered Feb. 18th – Don’t care to subscribe. FGW for SLC” [MTP].

Robert Donald for London Star wrote to Sam:

February 13 Friday – The deadline for Senator John P. Jones to exercise his option to form a stock company for the production of the Paige typesetter. The letter Jones promised in his Feb. 11 telegram arrived. Kaplan writes,

February 14 Saturday – C.S. Jackson wrote to thank Sam for his advice [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “From the youth whom I advised against using a nom de plume.”

February 14 Tuesday – Sam and Livy probably took the trip to New York this day that Sam had mentioned in several previous letters. The Gilsey House bill of Feb. 21 specified nights from Feb. 15 through Feb. 18, plus other purchases, and sets the timeframe for this trip.

February 14 Wednesday – Ex-Governor Marshall Jewell’s funeral was held at 11 AM. The body was then on view at Asylum Hill Congregational Church at 2:30 PM with “public exercises.” It is likely that Sam attended one or both of these services [N.Y. Times for Feb. 13, 1883 p.2]. (See Feb. 10 entry, letter to Howells of Mar.

February 14 Thursday – William L. Hughes for A. Hennuyer wrote from Paris that Hennuyer was about to print his translation of TS; he wanted Sam’s “sanction” for TS & also HF; forwarded a copy of Helen’s Babies, a humorous novel by John Habberton (1876) which he said was in the style that the TS would be published [MTP].

February 14 Saturday – Sam was introduced to tobogganing by 74 young ladies from Helmuth Female College, “2 ½ miles” out from town. It was twelve below zero.

February 14 Monday – William Dean Howells wrote again to Sam.

That invention of casting brass was to have been applied to wall-paper printing, wasn’t it, if the castings could be made free of air-holes? What was the technical phrase for this elimination of air-holes? I want to use this invention in my story [April Hopes (1888)]. — I’ve just read your speech to the publishers. Mrs. Howells thought with me that it was delicious, but accused you of inventing that boy’s comp. [composition on girls] Did you?

February 14 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, letting him know the electros for illustrations of Library of Humor had been shipped, and that galley-proofs would now begin shipping to him as well. He’d received the contract for the book from Chatto & Windus, and would sign it and return it as soon as he knew a publication date, which at that point was speculative, but would “most likely be April 25th” [MTP].

February 14 Thursday – Sam and Livy ended their two-day visit in Albany and returned to New York, staying at the Murray Hill Hotel. Coincidentally the big two-day gathering of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association was meeting there for the second day. In New York Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. Sam requested that “Brer Whitmo”:

February 14 Friday – Sam and Livy were still in New York, waiting for Livy to recover.

James H. West, publisher of The New Ideal (“Social Science and a Rational Religion”) sent a printed notification that Sam’s subscription expired with the number for Dec. 1889 [MTP].