Home at Hartford: Day By Day

March 24 Wednesday – At the Normandie Hotel in New York, Sam met in the morning with Charles Webster; later with Jesse Grant who was negotiating to gain part ownership in Webster & Co. [Mar. 19 to Webster].

March 24 Thursday – Franklin G. Whitmore wrote a letter for Sam to Charles Webster. The formal, business-like letter was essentially Sam’s agreement to the course Webster intended to pursue in recovering assets from the embezzler, Frank M.

March 24 Saturday – Sam was still in Washington. His notebook carries names of people to see and errands to complete while in the Capitol: Mrs. Ralph Cross Johnson wife of the lawyer and prominent art patron; he visited Colonel Alexander Bliss at 9:30 one of these evenings. Bliss was the son of Mrs. George Bancroft by her previous husband. Sam visited George Bancroft (1800-1891), then 87 years young.

March 24 Sunday – Livy wrote to her mother:

It is a wonderful day…. Clara and I have been to church. Susy staid at home, she has not been feeling quite well, having had quite a sore throat….

Of course the children are full of their lessons and very busy with their studying. I feel very unsettled about what I shall do with them, nothing in the way of a school seems to be exactly what I want.

I think Susy and Clara are both doing very well with their music this year [Salsbury 258].

March 24 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mr. S. Howell who also owned a cat named “Satan.”

Our Satan is not as popular as formerly, because he brought derision upon his name by having a Kitten…. The Kitten’s name is Sin — another blunder, for sin is of no sex, whereas the kitten is [MTP from Am. Art Assoc. sale May 10, 1934 Item 127].

March 24 Tuesday – † In Hartford Sam forwarded to Andrew Chatto a letter from an unidentified publisher written in Leipzig, Germany on Mar. 17. Sam wrote on the top margin of the first page of the letter, “My Dear Chatto: I have referred him to you” [MTP]. Note: this may have been Ernst Wartegg. See Mar. 14.

March 25 Thursday – Sam’s letter to Mary Keily of Feb. 21 ran in the Towanda Pennsylvania Reporter, page one [MTLE 5: 24]. Note: why it was published is not clear, except that Mark Twain was now so famous and well known, that nearly any letter from him made news.

March 25 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood about offering the “Stolen White Elephant” to Century. Sam had sent it to Howells to review. There were also some details about letterhead and Charles Clark’s name and P.O. Box being on it [MTP].

March 25 Sunday – In the Mar. 26 letter to the Gerhardts, Sam referred to this morning as Livy passing “the danger point” in her recent illness [MTP].

The following classified ad ran on page 5 of the Brooklyn Eagle:

March 25 Tuesday – Kate D. Barstow wrote from Wash. DC, what is now a very faded letter. She mentions having sent him invitations to Howard College of Medicine’s graduation exercises but received no congrats. Thanked him for his financial support [MTP].

March 25 Wednesday – Sam’s article, “The Carson Fossil-Footprints” was re-printed in the Sacramento Record–Union. The Twainian article speculates that this article, which was misdated by Merle Johnson in his 1935 bibliography, was planted by Sam as a way of promoting Huckleberry Finn, and because he knew an old friend on the staff of the paper [May-June, 1949 p1]. Note: Budd’s list, furnished by Thomas Tenney, shows this piece for 1884 in&nbs

March 25 Thursday – Sam continued his business stop in New York City.

A typesetting tournament began in Philadelphia on Mar. 16. Sam made an entry in his notebook on this day’s results for Joseph McCann of the New York Herald, and William C. Barnes of the New York World [MTNJ 3: 223]. See Mar. 27 entry for results.

March 25 Friday – In Hartford Sam responded to a letter from Mrs. Jenny S. Boardman, once Jenny Stevens, daughter of “the old jeweler of Hannibal, & sister of Ed, John & Dick” [Apr. 2 to Pamela]. Jenny had written about the idyllic Mississippi riverboat days.

March 25 Sunday – Sam was still in Washington D.C..

March 25 Monday – Daniel Whitford for Alexander & Green forwarded the draft of a new contract for the dramatization of P&P. The new agreement included Daniel Frohman as well as Abby Sage Richardson, and gave Sam and Abby half-shares of a sliding scale of receipts. Whitford offered that it was impossible “to make a more advantageous agreement.” The new contract was in force on May 13 [MTNJ 3: 466].

March 25 Tuesday – Samuel Coit wrote from Wash. D.C. to Sam thanking him for his response of Mar. 19 — “I shall follow your suggestion & hold on until the exhibition [of the typesetter] has demonstrated its [illegible word]. I should be pleased to know when that occurs as I shall want to see it.” Sam wrote on the letter, “Brer, please tell him whatever Paige says. / SLC” [MTP].

March 25 Wednesday – A. Hoffman writes:

March 26 Friday – David Watt Bowser wrote from Dallas to thank Sam for answering his letter. Laura Hawkins Dake, his teacher, was “so glad that you are such a famous man, and that you remember her so kindly, for she remembers you as the best friend of her youth” [MTP].

March 26 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood on sales figures and press releases for Tramp [MTLTP 135].

March 26 Monday – Sam sent a telegram from Hartford to George W. Cable, verifying the upcoming lecture date as Apr. 4 on “Creole Women” while working in the Baltimore reading. Sam added that Livy was “out of danger” [MTP].

March 26 Wednesday – James R. Osgood wrote to Clemens.

      Mr. Webster has shown us my letter of Apl. 5, 1882 proposing the terms of 71/2% for the first 50,000 copies, and agreeing to exempt you from the working expenses of the book….We have therefore agreed with Mr. Webster that we will assume these charges.

March 26 Thursday – Sam and Livy returned home from Boston on Mar. 25 or 26.

March 26 Friday – In New York, Sam wrote on Webster & Co. Letterhead to Mrs. Henry G. Allen. [MTP: Paraphrased from Charles Hamilton catalogs, Jan. 21, 1982, No. 143 Item 54].

The outside of your kind letter had such a business-like aspect that I handed it (without opening it) to a clerk to be answered. But there are some things which even the ablest clerk can’t do & this turned out to be one of them…”[MTP]

March 26 Saturday – Sam inscribed a copy of P&P to Harriet Beecher Stowe:

To Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe / with the reverence & admiration / of / The Author, / self-appointed instructor of the public / under the name of / Mark Twain / Hartford, March 26, 1887 [MTP].

March 26 Monday – Sam paid his second hotel bill of $78.85 at the Arlington House, which included 2 & ¾ days’ room and services, and railroad tickets: “2 ¾ days @ 16, 44.00; fires 3.00, cash 5.00, Laundry .60, RR tickets 25.40, Messenger .85” [MTP; MTNJ 3:381n271]. He left Washington for New York City and Hartford [380n262]. ‡ See addenda for corrected date of Terry-Irving Farewell banquet.