Home at Hartford: Day By Day

January 19 Monday – In Elmira, Sam wrote to Moncure Conway. He acknowledged receipt of funds from Chatto. “Dod-rot the new book—as John the Baptist would say—it hangs along drearily.”

January 19 Wednesday – The Jan. 31 bill from Western Union shows a telegram sent to Loman? on this date, recipient unspecified (see that entry).

James Wells Champney wrote to Clemens.

January 19 Thursday – Sam’s letter of Jan. 18 to Howells implied Ned House and daughter Koto ended their visit at the Clemens home this day. Koto had been ill but was “up & around again, now” [MTHL 1: 384].

Orion wrote Sam again, anxious that he had not personally addressed the package with his MS, asking Sam to let him know as soon as it arrived [Fanning 195].

January 19 Saturday – Phillip Shirley, a fellow passenger of Sam’s on his spring, 1868 return voyage to New York, submitted two of Sam’s poems to The Wasp, a short-lived San Francisco publication. The verses ran on this day [The Twainian, July-Aug. 1946, p.3-4]. Camfield lists these as “Ye Equinoctial Storm,” and “Tragic Tidings” [bibliog.].

Worden & Co. wrote to Sam. the $2,000 received [MTP].

January 19 Monday – Sam wrote from Chicago to Charles Webster, adding to the list of things he wanted progress reports on, including the weekly total of money received from Pond [MTP].

January 19 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster about the Henry Ward Beecher biography and the status of William Thompson Walters’ art book, which William Mackay Laffan had suggested. Sam wanted to limit an advance to $5,000 for Beecher, and $1,000 to James B. Pond, who was Beecher’s tour manager [MTP]. (See Jan.

January 19 Thursday – Orion Clemens began a nine-page letter to Sam he finished Jan. 20. Ma had suffered a stroke but was better. He was to have dinner today with Whitford and Hall at the Keokuk House, successor to the Patterson House; other family goings on and his work on history research [MTP]. Note: Whitford and Hall were in Keokuk relative to the R.T. Root lawsuit. See entries on R.T. Root.

January 19 Saturday – Mrs. T.C. Sylvis wrote from Olathe, Kansas to Sam. “I have just received your incomprehensible letter, in reply to mine [not extant], asking you for a souvenir. I am almost heart broken — I cannot believe that you would poke fun at me, by addressing me as ‘my dear baroness.’” [MTP].

Webster & Co. wrote to Sam: “We enclose herewith as requested duplicates of the Daily Report both of the Subscription Department and the Book-keeping Department” [MTP].

January 19 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles J. Roseboult of the N.Y. Sun. directing him not to wait for him, because he’d “been away for ten days & must go again.” He was out of “that after-dinner field for the season anyway.” Evidently Roseboult had sent Sam a list of questions (not extant), to which he wrote:

…only one answer is possible — a YES to the entire batch so strong that you have no type in the Sun office able to make it emphatic enough [MTP].

January 2 Sunday – A fire started in Sam and Livy’s bedroom from a hot croup-kettle and spread to Clara Clemens’ crib and canopy. Rosa, the German nursemaid, “snatched Bay from the midst of the flames, just in time to save her life.” Sam and Rosa threw the burning bedclothes out the window. Sam wrote that “it looked, for awhile, as if the house must go” [MTBus 149]. In his Oct. 3, 1906 A.D. Clemens related that the Polish wet-nurse should have been there but was not: Julia Koshloshky. See also Harnsberger, p. 28-9.

January 2 Monday – Edward House and daughter Koto arrived for a visit. Sam inscribed P&P to Koto, House’s adopted Japanese daughter: To / Koto House / With the affectionate regards of / The Author / Hartford Jan.2, 1882 [MTP]. Note: in his Dec. 27 to House Sam announced Koto would get the China paper edition.

Sam also wrote to Charles Webster:

“Dear Charley— Make me a copper stamp. I am on track of a way by which you can harden it afterwards, & make it as hard as brass. I hear this from the head of the Bank Note Co.” [MTP].

January 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. He wanted to nail down a producer and actor for the new play he’d written with Howells, “Colonel Sellers as a Scientist.” He also had written a dramatization of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer he wished to have produced.

“If the book business interferes with the dramatic business, drop the former—for it doesn’t pay salt; & I want the latter rushed. …

January 2 Friday – Sam wrote from Paris, Kentucky to Livy. He was sorry he’d missed going to a soldiers’ home in Cincinnati for General Franklin.

I froze to death all last night, & never once thought of Sam Dunham’s camel’s hair shirt—but I did think of it a couple of hours ago, & am very comfortable, now. I mean to lay it on the bed every night after this.

January 2 Saturday – Jervis Langdon, Jr. wrote to Sam and Livy, thanking them both for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which he thought “a very beautiful book….The story seems as interesting and funny as the pictures” [MTP].

William J. Hamersley wrote that they “had better decide pretty soon – whether or not we want to see a type setter charter…” he also wished a happy New Year [MTP].

January 2 Monday – London Pall Mall Gazette, p.4 ran a paragraph about the recent exchange between Sam and Brander Matthews over copyright. Items from London writers often lend a different perspective on events in Sam’s life.

January 2 Wednesday – Sam referred to “last night at dinner” with Elsie Leslie on his Jan. 3 inscription to HF. It’s not known where and who else was at the dinner, but likely Elsie’s mother and perhaps Augustin Daly and other stage personalities.

January 2 Thursday – Desmond O’Brien reviewed CY in the London weekly Truth, p.25, calling it,

…a bizarre book, full of all kinds of laughable and delightful incongruities — the most striking of its incongruities, however, being unconscious, grim, and disenchanting…. His fooling is admirable, and his preaching is admirable, but they are mutually destructive [Tenney 19].

January 2 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote through Franklin G. Whitmore to the Secretary of the Clover Club of Philadelphia, declining their invitation for Jan. 15 to attend the ninth anniversary dinner. He pled previous engagements [MTP].

James W. Paige wrote to Sam of more problems on the typesetter:

January 20 Thursday – The Jan. 31 bill from Western Union shows a telegram sent to So. Man. (South Manchester, Conn.) on this date, recipient unspecified (see that entry).

January 20 Friday – Howells, in a Boston boarding house where he might be close to his doctor, answered Sam’s Jan. 18 letter. Howells thanked him for the Gerhardt letter and remarked how “the ideal perfection of some things in life” led him to conclude, “never to meddle with the ideal in fiction….” He was just now recovering from a five-week stint in a sick bed due to exhaustion.

January 20 Sunday – In Hartford, Sam replied to the Jan. 18 of Howells, of the Mallory brothers nearly begging for details about the Sellers play or the “romantic and picturesque play” (about Bill Ragsdale and leprosy).

January 20 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Opera House in Janesville, Wisconsin. Cable wrote home:

January 20 Wednesday – The Hartford Courant ran “The Typothete,” on pages 1-2, quoting Sam’s New York speech of Jan. 18 at Delmonico’s.

One of the festive events in New York city Monday evening was the yearly Delmonico dinner of the Typotheter. This peculiar and rather awe-inspiring word is alleged to be Greek and so signify being interpreted, gentlemen, who have accumulated wealth by hiring other gentlemen to stick type for them.

January 20 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Rev. C.D. Crane (1849- ) of New Castle Maine, who had written asking three questions: what were the best books he might recommend for boys, for girls? And also what Everett Emerson calls the “desert island question” — that is, which books would Sam save if he could only save a few? (Crane’s incoming not extant.) Crane was evidently polling various authors for their choices for the purpose of publishing the results, since Sam wrote again on Jan.

January 20 Friday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam (Webster & Co. To Grant Jan.19 enclosed).

Dear Uncle Sam: / I got provoked and sent the enclosed letter to Fred Grant. It is a pretty hard letter but it is all true and states our case exactly. I hope this will bring him to his senses; if it does not he may go right along & sue[.] We are ready.