March – Webster & Co. sent “Books sent out during February, 1890” totaling 4,631, with 1,759 CY leading [MTP]. Note: the MTP catalogues this as a Feb. incoming entry.
In an unfinished piece titled, “Concerning the Scoundrel Edward H. House,” Sam accused House of lying about collaborating on Arrah-na-Pogue, or The Wicklow Wedding, the 1864 play in Dublin, Ireland by Dion Boucicault. Sam put this claim behind his suggesting House dramatize P&P,
March – † Sometime during the month an unidentified person wrote asking where Mark Twain got his material from for his books. The following has been taken from Paine, corrections to the original TS in the MTP have been added or made, including the phrase “& superficially” attributed to Bret Harte’s knowledge of mines, which Paine removed to sanitize Twain’s persona. This piece affords a remarkable view into Sam’s taking stock right after the dreams of monumental wealth were dashed.
March 19 Friday – Susy Clemens’ eighth birthday.
Sam’s Mar. 19 letter to Texas schoolboy, David Watt Bowser, includes the sentence, “I wrote all day yesterday…on the fifteenth chapter of a story for boys entitled ‘The Little Prince & the Little Pauper,’ —laid in the time of Edward VI of England…” [MTP].
March 19 Saturday – Susy Clemens’ ninth birthday.
Wm. T. Bassett, hairdresser, billed Sam $20 “From Feb. 1 up to Mar. 19 shaving & haircuts” [MTP].
March 19 Sunday – Susy Clemens’ tenth birthday.
Charles B. Paine (8 yr. Old boy in Hallowell, Me.) sent a pre-printed invitation for an autograph [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “No”
William D. Howells wrote [MTP].
March 19 Monday – Susy Clemens’ eleventh birthday.
March 19 Wednesday – Susy Clemens’ twelfth birthday. Sam gave her a copy of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and inscribed it: “Susie Clemens / from her father / March 19 ’84” [Gribben 693].
Karl Gerhardt wrote a postcard: “We have 12 days more in which to finish our group, so I will write at the end of that time. Your last letter rcd yesterday, all love to you all” [MTP].
March 19 Thursday – Susy Clemens’ thirteenth birthday.
Howells wrote again on Mar. 19 and changed the date for the Tavern Club gathering to Monday, Mar. 23 [MTHL 2: 523]. He also invited Thomas Bailey Aldrich [524n1].
March 19 Friday – Susy Clemens’ fourteenth birthday. From Susy Clemens’ diary entry of Mar. 23:
The other day was my birthday, and I had a little birthday parting in the evening and papa acted some very funny Charades, with Mr. Gherhardt, Mr. Jesse Grant (who had come up from New York and was spending the evening with us), — and Mr. Frank Warner. — One of them was “on his knees” honys-sneeze.
There were a good many other funny ones, all, of which I don’t remember.
March 19 Saturday – Susy Clemens’ fifteenth birthday. Sam inscribed two of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s books (under pseudonym “Christopher Crowfield”): The Chimney Corner, and Oldtown Folks to: Susie Clemens, Mch. 19, 1887 [Gribben 670]. Daisy Warner wrote her father about Susy’s birthday party:
March 19 Monday – Susy Clemens’ sixteenth birthday.
March 19 Tuesday – Susy Clemens’ seventeenth birthday.
In Hartford, Sam wrote a long letter of explanation to Edward H. House about contracting P&P for the stage with Abby Sage Richardson. Here in part:
I was not at home when your letter of a few days ago arrived [not extant]: it followed me, but has not yet over taken me; so I get its substance at second — hand.
March 19 Wednesday – Susy Clemens’ eighteenth birthday.
Sam wrote a postcard to Franklin G. Whitmore:
Yes, send me all letters that refer to the article, whether they cuss or applaud [MTP].
Rudyard Kipling’s famous interview with Mark Twain from August, 1889 ran again in the Allahabad, India The Pioneer Mail [Tenney 18; Baetzhold, John Bull 358n18].
Sam’s notebook: “Mch. 19, ’90 Chas. Hopkins Clark … one — (as trustee for Hartford Free Library) [Paige royalty sent]” [3: 569].
March 19 Thursday – Susy Clemens’ nineteenth birthday.
In Hartford Sam responded to Paige’s Mar. 18.
March 2 Wednesday – In the evening, Sam and Twichell returned home from West Point [MTP letter Mar. 3 to Anthony]. Twichell’s journal notes Sam and Joe “returned home charmed with our visit…” [Yale, copy at MTP].
Goertz Bros. “Sole agents for Lion Brewery,” Hartford, billed $7.90 for 10 & ½ doz. of pilsner beer @ .75; paid [MTP].
March 2 Thursday – From Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Charles Webster that he’d asked Hamersley the night before “if the $25000.00 had been raised” for the Paige typesetter investment; Hamersley answered that it had and that “the work perfecting the machine was proceeding.” Sam also mentioned that he’d seen the man “half a dozen times within the last month” and “never exchanged a word about that matter….” He added that he didn’t want to buy any more stock from the
March 2 Friday – Sam wrote from New York to Livy, excited about the possibility of staying over until Monday and seeing “Vignaux, the greatest billiard man that ever lived” in a private exhibition. It would be “an event memorable for a lifetime,” and Sam was “perishing to see it.” He would let her know [MTP]. Note: Maurice Vignaux (1846-1916).
March 2 Sunday – In Boston, Howells wrote after returning home from New York the day before. He recommended waiting for John T. Raymond, though how long he didn’t know. Should the Mallorys be able to secure Nat Goodwin at $350 or $400 a week, Howells felt they’d be “far better in the long run, even money wise, than if we let the play take its chances with an actor and a temporary combination” [MTHL 2: 477].
March 2 Monday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to J. Chipchase, who evidently solicited information on Feb. 23 from Sam about the American Bank Note & Co. stock, and called Sam “shrewd.” The stock was down, no doubt, as Sam answered he was:
March 2 Tuesday – John Russell Young wrote a two-line note from the Lotos Club to Sam that he’d be in Hartford on Thursday [MTP]. Note: Young at this time was again working for the New York Herald as their European correspondent. His handwriting was extremely small.
March 2 Wednesday – Assuming Pamela Moffett’s six-day visit at the Clemens home did not extend, she would have left by this day.
March 2 Saturday – William Dean Howells’ daughter Winifred Howells died after taking emergency treatments from Dr. S. Weir Mitchell at his clinic in Philadelphia. The treatments involved force-feeding and forced exercise for what was then seen as a catch-all category of female frailty called “neurasthenia.” At one point the young woman sank to 59 lbs. The immediate cause of death at the country retreat in Merchantville, was given as heart failure.
March 2 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam that Ma “seems well” but they were trying to keep her in her room. Orion was glad Sam “meant to come.”
When I read your letter to Ma, she said: “Tell him I want the horses and carriage he promised me. He never can pay me for all the trouble he was. He was the worst child I had — hollered and squalled day and night — wouldn’t let the nurse nor me, either, rest” [MTP].
March 2 Monday – William Hamersley sent Sam a printed postcard announcing a meeting of the stockholders of The Farnham Type-setter Manufacturing Co. at the office of James W.Paige at 12 o’clock M., March 6, 1891. The stated purpose of the meeting was to examine the plans for the manufacture of the Paige Compositor [MTP]. Note: At midnight!
March 20 Saturday – This was the approximate issue date for A Tramp Abroad. Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisha Bliss. Sam liked the look of the book, but noted that both Roughing It and Gilded Age sold “nearly double as many copies, in this length of time, so I imagine the Canadians have been working us heavy harm.” He was also glad the newspapers hadn’t knocked the book.