To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day

January 5 Sunday – Sam’s notebook:

Diving for mussels—found a great pearl in one, got it yet—quarrel. Huck: “they eat ‘em guts & all!” Work it in. & in “50 Years Later.” That cheat of a wood-cutter who cut the cat’s tail off.

Chipping old mortar from bricks at so much a brick [NB 45 TS 2]. Note: story ideas for putting Huck & Tom back in Hannibal 50 years later—a story never finished. Hill claims the MS “is one of the very few that, in his entire life, Mark Twain actually may have destroyed” [43].

January 5 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a note on the reverse side of a Christmas card by Henry W. and Nancy Lucy to Livy dated Dec. 24, 1902: “Mr. Lucy of ‘Punch.’ He is referring to ‘Amended Obituaries,’ Livy dear. I thought he & I invented it at Bryce’s (& I’m right about it, & he is wrong” [MTP].

Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Franklin G. Whitmore.

January 5 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.

I have finished the “Italian With Grammar,” & have cut it down a good deal. I believe it will now split in two in the middle conveniently & go into 2 numbers of the Weekly without taking up too much room. Jean will typewrite it soon, & send it along.

January 6 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Virginia F. Boyle, “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy” that he was unable to thank her in verse but “in the heartiest of prose” did so [MTP]. Note: see Feb. 14, 1901.

January 6 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a short poem to Livy: 
Good night, sweetheart, good night— 
The stars are shining bright, 
The snow is becoming turning white, 
Dim is the failing light, 
Fast falls the glooming night,— 
All right! 
Sleep tight! 
Good-night. / Y. [MTP; Gribben 577-8].

Susan L. Crane wrote to Sam:

January 6 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Villa di Quarto / Calamity House would be a better name” [NB 47 TS 4].

Edward B. Caulfield of the Italian Gazette wrote to Sam, enclosing his card, and revealing the name of the “young idiot” who had sent verses signed “M.T.”—it was H. Langan Stuart. “He is a disgusting young brute who when faced with the affair gave me his ‘word of honour’ twice that he knew nothing of it” [MTP].

January 7 Monday – Sam’s notebook lists readings Sam gave for the H.H. Rogers family: “Watermelon / Dead Man (window-sash) / Mexican Plug / Old Ram / Intermish of 10 or 12 m. Ornithorhyncus & poem / Xning Story German Lesson / Began 8:45; ended 10.10 / 1 hr 25 m / Pieces not used: Interviewer / Duel / Golden Arm / Whistling” [NB 44 TS 2]. Note: no doubt certain guests were also there.

January 7 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Brander Matthews: “There’s not a blamed thing in the way, except I’m mortgaged for a lunch already, on that day” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Francis H. Skrine in London:

“Although the Sir William biography, through the (possibly criminal) neglect of your publishers continues to not arrive, that doesn’t prevent these Clemenses from shouting Happy New Year in this most cordial voice across the Atlantic to those well-beloved Skrines.”

January 7 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “1 p.m. Moretti’s 151 W. 34 / Howells to Harry Harland. / 7 p.m. Home. Wright & Kelsey” [NB 46 TS 4]. Sam also added to the nine items listed on Jan. 5: “#10. June 12/02. ‘The Am. Pl. Co’ / $5,000. Endorsed twice ‘the A.P. Co’ / H.E. Wright, General Manager” [ibid. 4-5].

January 7 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.

I have letters from England asking that the Dog’s Tale be issued in swell form & price & kept on view all the time & used as a present in holiday-time & out of it. One man (of manifestly fine judgement) says “It is already a classic, & will remain so. It stands at the head of the literature of its kind.”

January 8 Tuesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to retired General Oliver O. Howard, founder of Howard University. Howard had been Supt. Of West Point in 1881-2.

January 8 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells that he’d lost the letter from Thomas Bailey Aldrich; he still had it the day before but now he couldn’t find it anywhere. He would keep looking [MTHL 2: 738]. Note: see Jan. 3.

January 8 Thursday – Sam’s notebook : “1 p.m. Lunch to Harry Harland, by Howells; at Moretti’s, 15 W. 34th” [NB 45 TS 36]. Also: “#435. Lincoln, Dec. 4 $500, ‘making $5,500 thus paid in on sub. of $25,000. / Jan. 15, 1903 Am. Pl. Co, $9,500. # 25 / Endorsed, ‘The American Plasmon Co., R.W. Ashcroft, Treasurer.’ #30. Feb. 3 to ‘Pl. Co. of Am’ $10,000 / Endorsed ‘Cr. Plas. Co. of America’ ‘Endorsement guaranteed’ (by ‘5th Ave. Trust Co’.)” [NB 46 TS 5].

January 8 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.

I see by the telegram in the “Nationale” that Joan of Arc was beatified day before yesterday, & that the Holy Father replied in person to the eulogy delivered by the Archbishop of Paris.

It may be that this event will presently start up a run of magazining concerning Joan. I being her American literary representative, & author of the first historical story in our late long list of that kind

January 9 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Harvey 1 PM / Lawyer’s Club / Harmsworth. / Carriage will call at 12.30 / Prof. Sloan, 8 o’ck / 109 E. 69th” [NB 44 TS 3].

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to nephew Samuel E. Moffett on Solon Robinson’s letter of this date. Robinson was seeking heirs of John M. Clemens, Jr., a nephew of John Marshall Clemens. “You answer him if you like, Sam,—I lack interest” [MTP].

January 9 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam sent 16 form letters to writers (25 were named in the publisher’s list) to determine if they had been asked and did contribute a story to a proposed book (A House Party) by Small & Maynard, a Boston publisher. He was concerned that his name had been advertised as one of the writers without his permission. The recipients all answered in the affirmative: they had been invited to contribute. Thirteen responses survive;. These writers were: John K.

January 9 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.

Yes, you can send me an advance, now, of any sum you please; but three or four thousand will answer.

I was at dinner last night at Mr. Rogers’s, & he said you had nothing to fear from the Harpers: “Bliss is a straight man; if they try to make trouble with him, let him call on me & I will prove that they cannot touch him.” He thinks you should go right ahead with the scheme you spoke to me about, & not be afraid [MTP].

July 1 Monday – Surviving canceled checks:

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

July 1 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “First ½ payment to be made on York Harbor ($300.) / Mrs. E. Hartwig will call. / 16 W. Friendship st / Providence, R.I. / from the Queen of Roumania” [NB 45 TS19]. Note: Mrs. Hartwig had been in the Queen’s court for many years; see Queen to MT May 9, 1902; also Sam’s letter of recommendation for Mrs. Hartwig Nov. 16, 1904.

July 1 Wednesday – At 8:30 a.m. Sam, Livy, and her trained nurse, Miss Margaret Sherry, left the Riverdale house and went down the hill to get on a launch. From the launch to Rogers’ yacht Kanawha, then down river to the Lackawanna R.R. dock at Hoboken, the group made the 10 a.m. train for the long ride to Quarry Farm in Elmira. They arrived at 4:40 p.m. Clara and Jean were to follow them the first week in August. In his July 2 to the Huttons Sam described the trip, and put it to this day:

July 1 Friday – The Clemens party was en route in the Prince Oscar from Naples to New York.

Sam’s notebook: “I cannot reproduce Livy’s face in my mind’s eye—I was never in my life able to reproduce a face. It is a curious infirmity—& now at last I realize it as a calamity / [Horiz. Line separator] / Passed Gibraltar in the fog, 1.a.m. It is a slow ship” [NB 47 TS 15; MTB 1222 in part]. Note: the 1 a.m. would have been July 2.

July 10 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine, Sam’s notebook again lists old Hannibal acquaintances for the 50 years after story: “John Briggs, Will, Sam, Bart, John Bowen | Ed Stevens, Bill Coffman | George, Clay, John Robards Jane & Sally Robards. Ray Moss & Neil, Mary. | Artemissa Briggs Mary Miller, Laura Hawkins | Becky Pavey & Pole / ‘Pig-tail done’ tavern | Bladder-time. Weeds. / Offal given away at porkhouse” [NB 45 TS 21].

July 10 Friday – Livy wrote to daughter Clara “about her admiration for [Louis] Agassiz’s fortitude in facing the prospect of blindness when he was a young man; he practiced the study of fossils by touch alone so that he would not be forced to give up his career [Gribben 12: MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Telegraphed Collier he better get definite 10 day option to purchase from Bliss & stop any farming-out projects / The week with the Gov. Gen. of Canada” [NB 46 TS 21].

July 10 Sunday – The Clemens party was en route in the Prince Oscar from Naples to New York.

Sam’s notebook: “To-night it will be 5 weeks. But, to me it remains yesterday—as it has from the first. / But this funeral march—how sad & long it is! / Two more days will end the second stage of it” [MTB 1222; NB 47 TS 15].

July 11 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

July (?) Friday (?) 11th (?) ’02

Dear Mr. Rogers: