February 27 Saturday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Dr. H. Laing Gordon, and marked it “Private” at the top:
You will remember that you gave me your positive promise that no part of what I was going to read should appear in print; a promise so unqualifiedly positive that I fully trusted in it & therefore took no protective measures myself. Yet straightway an elaborate report appeared in the local paper. I have waited for an explanation—& have expected one. As your disregarded promise will cost me 8,352 Lire, I feel that I have a just right to ask you where I am to look for reimbursement [MTP].
Note: the doctor is listed in several medical journals of the time as from Edinburgh, but with a practice later in Florence. He was connected with the British Relief Fund in Florence; Sam gave a reading for the Fund, “Italian Without Grammar” [Fatout, MT Speaking 673]. Fatout lists this event as “March (?)” but this letter suggests it had already been given before Feb. 26, since Sam wrote he “waited for an explanation” after seeing a newspaper report. It is so placed.
Miss Sarah Malcohn Freeborne (1861-1906), an American sculptor living in Florence, invited Sam to visit her studio [MTP]. Note: well known in America as a portraitist, Sarah became a sculptor, moved to Egypt and then lived in Florence for the last 14 years of her life. She died in Boston shortly after returning for a visit.
N.H.R. Walker wrote to Sam. “Please let me know if you consider that I have taken a liberty with all of your writings and with the ‘Buffalo Express’ in using them to concoct (?) the enclosed? Would you consider it plagiarism should I offer this for publication?” Walker enclosed a sheet full of phrases from Mark Twain’s works [MTP]. Note: “Tell him no, it would not be plagiarism. / SLC / Ans. March 14, 1904”