January 3 Sunday – In Hartford Sam sent a short note to Charles Hopkins Clark of the Hartford Courant, and an ally on the “Library of Humor” project, wishing him “Happy New Year’s!” and observing about past communications on the “Library” book:
You perceive that nothing — in Howells’s opinion — is necessary but a selection from his own humor; then the book will be finished [MTP].
January 3 Monday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam that Henry Ward Beecher was contemplating a biography:
January 3 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Augustin Daly:
Schon gut! I’ll be there [MTP].
From Sam’s notebook: Bal., Jan 3/88 — 13,293.28 [MTNJ 3: 362].
Stocks and./or bonds were returned to Charles J. Langdon for the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp. [Apr. 3, 1891 to Kelly]. See also July 11, 1889.
January 3 Thursday – Sam signed a contract giving Abby Sage Richardson permission to stage P&P. Fatout writes:
January 3 Friday – In Hartford Sam met Edward Bellamy, author of Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888). Sylvester Baxter accompanied Bellamy at Sam’s invitation [MTHL 2: 622n2]. Bellamy and Baxter shared political sentiments.
Sam also wrote to Isabel Von Oppen, who had sent a manuscript. Sam wrote that he was “not connected with a magazine or other periodical” and would not be able to use her submission [MTP].
January 3 Saturday – Sam dictated a letter to Franklin G. Whitmore to send to James W. Paige. Noted was receipt from Franklin’s son Will, a statement of expenses for the month of December.
He desires Mr. Boaz that he is not now making any further advances for the Type machine. …he is endeavoring to have your objections to the form of contract which he submitted to you last week, as he is very anxious to show the machine to Mr Jones [Senator John P. Jones] at the earliest possible opportunity [MTP] Note: signed by Whitmore as agent for S.L. Clemens.
January 30 Sunday – Based on Saturday Jan. 29 being “three weeks” prior, and from Sam’s account to Howells of Feb. 21, this is the day Charles Warner came to dinner at the Clemens’ home and urged Sam to help Hattie Gerhardt (b. 1863) [MTLP 397].
January 30 Monday – Edward “Ned” House and his adopted Japanese daughter, Koto, evidently returned for what was intended to be a brief visit, because Sam wrote on Jan. 28 to Howells that “House & Koto are coming Monday. They leave again Tuesday.” House and daughter may have traveled somewhere and returned to spend another day with Sam. An attack of gout would keep House abed at Sam’s for three weeks. House wouldn’t leave until Feb.
January 30 Tuesday – John Russell Young wrote from Wash. DC to relate his trip to Japan and a visit with Edward House, “jaunty, cheerful, wise and gracious as usual.” He talked of politics: “Arthur seems to be an exceptional president—safe, conservative and patriotic…Gen. Grant writes the people are tired of paying war taxes in time of peace,—an explanation that is new” [MTP].
January 30 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed from Hartford to Louise Cable: “Your husband will be out of bed by tomorrow S.L. Clemens” [Turner, MT & GWC 28].
He also telegraphed James B. Pond twice in Cable’s behalf that he would be unable to read the following night [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
January 30 Friday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Rockford, Illinois. Ralph Emerson and wife wanted Sam to “camp in their house, which is the best one in town (Rockford), but” he had to leave at 11 P.M. in a freight train [Jan. 31 to Livy, MTP]. Ozias Pond remained in Milwaukee, and his brother James was at the Everett House in New York City.
January 30 Saturday – Sam was at the Hotel Normandie in New York [Prime’s Jan. 29].
The copyright issue and bills in the U.S. Congress also resonated overseas. The London Pall Mall Gazette carried an article, “THE AMERICANS AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT” on p.7:
January 30 or February 6 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John C. Kinney, editor Hartford Courant, enclosing a speech, likely for the Stationers Board of Trade dinner on Feb. 10.
Here is the speech. Won’t you please rush it into type & send me a proof? [Note: Feb. 6 seems more likely, given the rush order].
January 30 Monday – Sam’s notebook carried a half-page of calculations of N.Y. Tribune output and production using the Mergenthaler Linotype machines [MTNJ 3: 371].
January 30 Wednesday – The major portion of Sam’s Dec 27, 1888 letter about plagiarism to Baroness Gripenberg was translated and ran in the Stockholm, Sweden newspaper, Göteborg Handels-och Sjöfarts-Tidning [Moyne 377].
January 30 Thursday – Sam wrote on a card to an unidentified person:
If I had ever made such a resolution I would break it now. Yours truly Mark Twain. Jan. 30/90 [MTP].
Daniel Whitford wrote to Sam that the gross receipts of P&P for the week beginning Jan. 20 were $5,433.25 and he enclosed a check for Sam’s portion with statement (not extant). Whitford had called on Frohman to again discuss foreign rights to the play — no agreement was reached [MTP].
January 30 Friday – James Whitcomb Riley wrote to Sam enclosing his poem, “Honest Old Sam Hungerford.” Gribben writes:
“Riley sent this poem to Clemens from Pittsburg…; it is a ‘dialect’ piece about ‘the prince of honest men,’ someone who ‘never earnt a dollar, ner he didn’t give a dam!’ Riley wrote that he wanted to hear Clemens recite the short poem ‘in some deep, reposeful state of satirical exasperation’” [580]. Note: see Feb. 2 for Sam’s thanks.
January 31 Monday – Sam and his servant Patrick McAleer went to the Gerhardt apartment on “the second story of a little wooden house.” Sam inspected a statue of a young woman nude to the waist holding up a towel, “the expression attempted being a modified scare—she was interrupted when about to enter the bath.” (The work was titled “Startled Bather.”) It then became evident that the young wife Hattie Gerhardt had been the model for the statue.
January 31 Tuesday – The Canadian poet laureate, Louis Honoré Fréchette of Quebec, was a big fan of Sam’s and met him during the Montreal dinner. Fréchette was also William Dean Howells’ brother-in-law, husband of Anne Howells. Fréchette soon came to the U.S.; Sam spoke at a dinner in his honor at the Hotel Windsor, in Holyoke, Mass. His subject: “On After-Dinner Speaking”:
January 31 Thursday – Sam continued to entertain George W. Cable, down with a case of the mumps, and recovering slowly. Drugged with quinine, Cable had to dictate letters to his wife through either Livy or Lilly Warner. Cable told of enjoying Sam’s company and the:
January 31 Saturday – From Davenport, Iowa, Sam wrote of his recent travels to Livy:
“…struck a sleeping-car train at 12.30 [A.M.], but did not go to bed, as we had to change cars at 2.40. Did it, slept till 6, when we reached Rock Island; then Cable & I walked up through the town & over toward this place, when a sleigh overtook & we rode” [MTP].
January 31 Sunday – From the Hotel Normandie in New York City, Sam wrote a short letter to William C. Prime, who was representing General George B. McClellan’s widow for publishing the General’s memoirs. Charles L. Webster & Co. Published McClellan’s Own Story in 1887.
January 31 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, editor Century Magazine. Did he want a “powerful readable short article (about 5,000 words at a rough guess?)”; Would he pay more than “of yore”? And would Gilder “crowd it into the March No.?” [MTP]. Sam was working on “English As She Is Taught,” which would appear in the Century in the April issue.
January 31 Tuesday – S.R. Peale wrote to Sam offering to purchase his bonds of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp. Sam would forward this letter to his brother-in-law, Charles J. Langdon, asking what answer he should make, and received the answer not to make any; Charles would sell [MTP].
January 31 Thursday – At 10 a.m. in New York, Sam left for Washington joined by Robert Underwood Johnson of Century Magazine [MTNJ 3: 445]. The men aimed to lobby for passage of a copyright bill. Sam also referred to a “prospectus” to take to Washington, probably investment promotion for the typesetter as the prospectus for CY was not completed until Oct. 1889 [n125].