January 25 Monday – William Mackay Laffan for the N.Y. Sun. Wrote warning that he’d seen the Baltimore (Mergenthaler) machine set type on Saturday Jan 23:
…every daily in this town will be set up by that machine inside of twelve months….This is confidential; but you’d better haul in your tents and [illegible] like hell [MTP].
January 25 Tuesday – Under consideration for over a year, Webster & Co. And Adam Badeau finally signed a contract for Badeau’s Grant in Peace. Webster later insisted that some portions revealing the bitter Badeau-Grant disagreement of 1885 be edited to avoid distress to Mrs. Grant, causing Badeau to withdraw from the contract. The book was published in 1887 by S.S. Scranton & Co. Of Hartford [MTNJ 3: 270n146].
January 25 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook on Webster & Co. Bank balance: Jan 25 — 10,352. Sam also wrote two paragraphs on the N.Y. Tribune’s printing and use of typesetters. [MTNJ 3: 368].
January 25 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Joe Twichell complimenting him on his speech of the previous evening.
January 25 Saturday – After his Jan. 23 dinner at the Union League Club, William Dean Howells stopped off at Hartford, probably staying the night. He wrote to Sam of the visit and his departure on Jan. 28 and also on Feb. 2 to his father [MTHL 2: 628&n4].
The Critic reviewed the stage version of P&P.
January 25 Sunday – Sam was in Washington, seeking to confer with Senator John P. Jones on the Paige typesetter.
James Redpath wrote from N.Y. asking Sam if there were any services he could perform for him, as he was out of production with Belford Co. Publishers [MTP].
January 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Dan Slote, who evidently had passed some Kaolatype business by Sam that he felt was too small for his consideration:
January 26 Thursday – John Russell Young of the New York Herald inscribed a copy of his Around the World with General Grant in 1877, 1878, 1879 (1879): “To Mark Twain, honoring his genius; and remembering the friendship of many, many years. Jno Russell Young, N.Y., January 26, 1882” [Gribben 795].
January 26 Friday – Edmund C. Stedman wrote from NYC.
My two days’ journey in Connecticut, and the winter idyl of twenty-four hours in your beautiful home [Jan. 22], seem already like an aurora borealis—or like a fire-light dream, & about the only cheerful dream I’ve had this season.
January 26 Monday – Sam wrote from Minneapolis to Charles Webster, more of the same—directing him again about putting funds in his name, and sending unbound copies of HF to magazines [MTP].
In the evening Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Philharmonic Hall, Winona, Minnesota. Cable wrote that they had to “rise at 5 tomorrow morning to take cars. O how home-sick I am” [Turner, MT & GWC 91].
January 26 Tuesday – In New York, headed to Washington the next day, Sam sent his love to the “chil’n” in a letter to Livy.
Livy dear, the contracts are signed & delivered, & everything is satisfactory.
January 26 Wednesday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam, responding to his request for statistics on the sale of Grant’s Memoirs. Webster wrote that the paper used to make the book, “would make a ribbon…one inch wide which would stretch seven and one third (7 1/3) times around the world” [MTNJ 3: 275n166]. Note: no such ribbon was made.
January 26 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam responded to Irving Putnam’s Jan. 24 praise about P&P.
January 26 Sunday – In the evening William Dean Howells left the Clemenses and Hartford, catching the train “just as it began to move” [MTHL 2: 628]. Howells wrote his father on Feb. 2, apologizing for failing to write “last Sunday,” this day: “I had been at New York, and I stopped to see Mark Twain at Hartford and we talked much all day” [MTP: Life in Letters of William Dean Howells, p.1 Doubleday, 1928].
January 26 Monday – † Sam was in Washington, seeking to confer with Senator John P. Jones on the Paige typesetter.
January 27 Tuesday – Sam wrote a one-liner from Elmira to an unidentified female: “Well, my dear, I won’t forget you if you don’t forget me. That is fair” [MTLE 5: 15].
January 27 Thursday – The Connecticut Humane Society receipted Sam $5 as “active member”; Sam paid Geeley’s Wardrobe $6.50 for suit purchased on Dec. 27 [MTP].
Worden & Co., New York stockbroker, telegraphed Sam: “Sold one hundred Western Union eighty two” [MTP].
January 27 Friday – Worden, Webb & Co. advised sale 100 shares Western Union @ 82 [MTP].
John Russell Young wrote: “I send you a copy of my work by express” [MTP]. Note: see Jan 26.
January 27 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about details of remodeling work at the Farmington house [MTBus 209].
January 27 Sunday – George W. Cable, visiting the Clemens home while on a reading tour, came down ill, probably with a case of the mumps, though Webster describes the illness as measles [234]. Kaplan describes it as a “fever and racking pains in his lower jaw” [254]. Sam hired a private nurse to care for his guest. The nurse and all three Clemens girls came down with the mumps [254]. Cable was nursed back to health but would be laid up at Sam’s until Feb.
January 27 Tuesday – This from Sam’s Jan. 31 letter to Livy, about visiting Governor Lucius Fairchild and family in Madison, Wisc.:
January 27 Wednesday – Sam left New York in the morning and traveled by train to Washington. He intended to stay at the Ebbitt House.
January 27 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Dora Wheeler, answering an inquiry to visit. Livy would like nothing better, Sam answered, but Livy couldn’t.
She came home & fought that cold a day or two, but it laid her by the heels at last. She’s been abed the last few days — & when she goes to bed there’s reason for it, every time.
January 27 Friday – Andrew Chatto wrote Sam a reminder of “the steps necessary to be taken to secure copyright in Great Britain, Canada, & the US” for Library of Humor. Other contract matters were discussed [MTNJ 3: 372, 375n242].
January 27 Monday – The New York Times, p.5, ran a long article on Edward House’s lawsuit, “MARK TWAIN HAULED UP,” which cited from Sam’s Dec. 17 & 26, 1886 letters to House about dramatizing P&P. Also quoted were affidavits in the suit, and House’s Aug. 29, 1887 letter to Sam. There is little doubt as to the sentiments of the Times (see Whitford’s reason for a Times grudge, Jan. 31):