November 26 Sunday – In New York, Sam attended his dinner invitation with Henry Irving at Delmonico’s. Fatout reports this as a dinner speech [MT Speaking 660]. Sam accepted the invitation behind the stage at Abbey’s Theatre on Nov. 17.
Sam inscribed a copy of P&P to Edy (no further name given): To Edy from Mark Twain with his best wishes and kindest regards. New York, Nov. 26, ’93. [MTP].
November 27 Monday– Livy’s 48th birthday. Strictly speaking, the gathering with John Mackay (above) which lasted until 1:30 a.m., went into this day.
November 28 Tuesday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy about John Mackay’s letter he thought he’d sent (inviting Sam to talk to her over Mackay’s cable); the gathering of Mackay and a dozen guests Sam joined at the late hour on Nov. 26 into Nov. 27; the book and inscription Sam gave him; going to Mackay’s office at noon the day before (Nov. 27) [LLMT 279-80]. Note: this is the second letter ascribed to Nov.
November 29 Wednesday – In New York Sam wrote Orion and Mollie Clemens, enclosing the NY Times Nov. 12 article about the Lotos Club dinner, and using one of his famous lined-out words to convey his true feelings, but bowing to self-censorship:
Dear Orion & Molly: I meant to send you this, at the time; I don’t know how I forgot it. Probably for the same reason that I forgot to send any to Livy till it was ancient history.
November 30 Thursday – Sam’s 58th Birthday. In New York he wrote to William Dean Howells, apologetic about a mix-up having accepted Howells’ and Judge Charles H. Truax’s invitations for the same day.
I am to go to a breakfast at noon next Sunday [Dec. 3], & am disgusted with myself for being so thoughtless as to consent. I am not capable of two appetites in one day.
December – “Traveling with a Reformer” first ran in the Cosmopolitan. It was later included in How to Tell a Story, and Other Essays (1897), and The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900) and My Debut as a Literary Person, etc. (1903) [Budd, Collected 2: 1001]. The second installment of Tom Sawyer Abroad appeared as a serial in the Dec. issue of St. Nicholas Magazine.
December 1 Friday – In New York on Players Club stationery, Sam wrote a short note to Charles Willey in Bay Shore, Long Island:
My Dear Sir: / I have great confidence in Huck Finn’s judgment in these matters; therefore I am quite willing that you should use the design [MTP].
Sam visited William Dean Howells in his N.Y. apartment but “had to leave there …because so many people came there was no satisfaction in the visit” [Dec. 2 to Livy].
December 2 Saturday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy. He enclosed Howells’ Dec. 1 request that he not wear his dress coat, writing a paragraph on the back:
Livy darling, I shall go in a dress coat just the same. I had to leave there yesterday because so many people came there was no satisfaction in the visit. Several of them called Howells out for extended private interviews. Heretofore there have been many people. But they stayed in the parlor.
Sam then wrote the balance of his letter on other pages:
December 3 Sunday – Sam started at 11:45 a.m. for a noon “breakfast engagement” at the home of Judge Charles H. Truax, 1992 Madison Ave. He arrived late, but “Nobody was surprised.” The meal was not served until 3 p.m. He had to leave at 5 p.m. in order to make a dinner engagement with William Dean Howells at his apartment, 40 West 59th St., some 110 blocks away, “22 miles in snow & slush!” [MTHL 2: 655n1; Dec. 4 to Livy].
December 4 Monday – In New York Sam wrote two letters to Livy; the second with a paragraph to daughter Jean. In the first letter he opened with reassurance of his love, and apologized should he “bust out into momentary impatiences.” That he had written anything which made her cry caused him pain; he would try his “best not to do so again.” He referred to “that miserable business of Clara’s going to Berlin,” and saw “no other way” but for her to stay with Livy for the time being.
December 5 Tuesday – In New York, at the Players Club, Sam read Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s An Old Town by the Sea (1893), which commemorated Aldrich’s birthplace of Portsmouth, N.H. Sam finished the book at 3 a.m. the next morning [Gribben 17; Dec. 6 to Aldrich].
December 6 Wednesday – In New York Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich after staying up half the night reading An Old Town by the Sea.
If I had written you last night when I began the book, I should have written breezily and maybe hilariously; but by the time I had finished it, at 3 in the morning, it had worked its spell & Portsmouth was become the town of my boyhood — with all which implies & compels: the bringing back of one’s youth, almost the only time of life worth living over again…[MTP].
December 7 Thursday – In New York in the afternoon the “several interests” of the typesetter “met face to face for the first time.” Towner K. Webster and his lawyer represented the Chicago interests, “the two Knevals represented the” Connecticut Co., Henry H. Rogers, and Sam, who wrote to Livy of the meeting the next day (Dec. 8):
December 8 Friday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy, telling about the prior day’s conference with interests of the type-setter, and of a 4 p.m. reconvening later this day, after Henry H. Rogers held a private meeting with him before the meeting.
The object of this [meeting with Rogers] may be to advise me as to how much stock to stand out for, in exchange for my royalties. And also as to how many royalties to refuse to give up. He wants all other royalties absorbed, if it be possible, but not all of mine.
December 9 Saturday – In New York at 9 a.m. the final meeting of all the interests (without Paige)in the typesetter took place. The group broke for lunch and met again at 3 p.m. Sam wrote to Livy relating the prior day’s meeting and this day’s:
December 10 Sunday – Sam returned to New York and wrote from the Players Club to the Secretary of the Millicent Library in Fairhaven, Mass. This was Henry H. Rogers’ boyhood town to which he later gave many gifts, including the Fairhaven High School, the Town Hall, a Masonic Hall, Cushman Park, and Millicent Library, named for his deceased daughter who had a love of books. At age 20 Rogers left the town to seek his fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania.
December 11 Monday – In New York Sam came down with a bad cold, and called in Dr. Clarence Rice to administer. He kept an appointment (unspecified) at noon [Dec. 14 to Trumbull]. Evidently, he did not go with Rice to a play as proposed in his notebook [NB 33 TS 43].
Livy wrote to Sam. He received the letter (not extant) on Dec. 25 with three others from her (Dec. 9, 10, 12), after his return from Chicago [Dec.25 to Livy].
December 12 Tuesday – Livy wrote to Sam. He received the letter (not extant) on Dec. 25 with three others from her (Dec. 9, 10, 11), after his return from Chicago [Dec.25 to Livy].
William A. Goodhart (Law offices of Goodhart & Phillips, N.Y.) wrote to Sam:
December 13 Wednesday – In New York on Dr. Clarence Rice’s letterhead, Sam wrote to Clarence C. Buel, asking if he might get “that Thursday talk put off?” due to his bad cough and cold. He was scheduled to give a lecture to the St. George’s Church Men’s Club on “Reminiscences of a Mississippi Pilot” on Dec. 14.
Sam also wrote on Players Club letterhead to Henry H. Rogers:
Dear Doctor Rogers:
December 14 Thursday – In New York and still laid up, Sam wrote to Clarence C. Buel:
I am still in bed, & waiting for Dr. Rice to come & withdraw his prohibition.
I have been obliged to eat — couldn’t wait any longer, because I had a long fit of coughing which had to be stopped somehow or other. So don’t keep a place for me at table.
December 15 Friday – The N.Y. Times, p.1 reported Sam failed to meet his Dec. 14 speaking engagement at St. George’s Church because “his medical adviser forbade it.”
December 16 Saturday – In New York Sam moved to a better room at the Players Club. He completed the “Tale of the Dime-Novel Maiden,” which he began in a letter to Livy on Oct 17. In his Dec. 17 to Livy he wrote of moving into his new quarters on this evening and running across the tale which he’d misplaced.
December 17 Sunday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy, enclosing the “Tale of the Dime-Novel Maiden,” and describing his new digs, and the difficulty of waiting:
December 18 Monday – In New York Sam dined with the Laurence Hutton family and wrote of it on Dec. 19 to Livy:
I dined with the Huttons yesterday [Dec. 18] evening — family dinner, no dress — & we had a delightful time till 11 o’clock. Mr. Hutton thinks Pudd’nhead opens up in great & fine style. The fact is I get a great many compliments on that story & the promise it holds out to the reader [MTP].
December 19 Tuesday – In New York, Sam went to the Standard Oil office at noon to arrange the Chicago trip they’d planned. While waiting he met Wayne MacVeagh, now Minister to Italy, and father to Margaretta, friend of Susy’s. When told they hadn’t heard from Susy, Sam filled him in.