January 25 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
Mrs. Clemens says she is not “in better health & spirits in consequence” of your not writing me; that your letters haven’t any such effect. But I tell you what! she finds these last 6 weeks in bed a pretty hard trial; she got knocked back just as she was beginning to get out-doors. But Professor Grocco says she will certainly begin to make some progress soon.
It is sorrowful news you send about the Broughtons & the Coes. You have been having an anxious time, but I judge that you are feeling much less anxious now. I do hope everything is all right by this time, & recovery complete. But your own condition is not satisfactory at all—confound that Boston rack that you have been stretched on so long; you have enough of wear & tear of body & spirit without that addition. Mrs. Clemens is worried about you, & thinks you & Mrs. Rogers could be persuaded to come here, but I tell her I couldn’t be persuaded unless I could bring my work with me, a person’s industries being a very essential part of his life; & the idea of your being contented with folded hands & an idle mind being a thing not imaginable. A month or two of it you might endure—& with profit, too—but not more; more could make the remedy a harm rather than a help. Maybe I can find a villa with more bedrooms in it than this one. I shall try. Then I hope you & Mrs. Rogers will come over & take a rest with us. I don’t want to stay in this house 6 months longer, anyway, & I foresee that Mrs. Clemens has got to stay in Italy a good while yet. I dictate autobiography from 11 till 12.30, daily, & can have all my afternoons free to skirmish with you.
Next month & its sunny weather will do great things for Mrs. Clemens; I live in a strong conviction of that.
I venture affectionate congratulations to the Broughtons & the Coes, & hope they will not be mistimed. / Yours ever / SLC [in left margin of second page:] Love to Rice, & I hope his bachelor days will soon be over [MTHHR 553-4].
Sam’s notebook: “It is not best to use our morals week-days, it gets them out of repair for Sundays” [NB 47 TS 5].
John R. Carpenter, executor of Mollie Clemens’ estate, wrote from Keokuk, Iowa to Sam, enclosing under separate cover, registered, three packages that were in Mollie’s box at Brownell’s Bank. As soon as he could straighten out her papers he would send an inventory of her books and other articles [MTP]. Note: evidently after receiving the box, Sam wrote on this letter:
Watch for Susy (not here)
Set of silver teaspoons for Jean, marked Dec. 25 ‘I believe’
Silver card-case isherefor Clara
2 little gold buckles for Jean
Shell sleeve-buttons for me…
Gold buckle for Livy.
Studs for Livy.
Pamela, Sam, Livy & I to act with Orion in distribution of Ma’s effects [MTP].
Andrew Langdon wrote from the Grand Continental Hotel, Cairo, Egypt to Sam. “Your valued note of 6th was awaiting my return…I am sorry enough to hear that Livy is so poorly—Do write me again of her. I will hope for good results…” He was sailing the next day for Constantinople and hoped to reach Paris about Feb.15, then sail for home at the end of the month; he did not expect to go to Florence on this trip [MTP].
Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford to Sam, pasting a short clipping at the top of the first page, which announced his presiding at a funeral (deceased not identified): “Rev. Joseph Twichell, D.D., of Hartford, Conn. one of the most famous after-dinner speakers in America.” Joe wrote:
“How’s the above for booming a funeral? For the uncommon violation of the proprieties the newspaper boys do beat all. In this case they intended well. They meant to get the deceased a good house. But imagine my reservations on reading the advertisement, and subsequently on appearing before the audience! –and seeing ‘Now we are going to have something!’ written on their faces.”
Joe wrote of the “unconquerable tenacity of Livy’s hold on life,” and recalled “Old Burton’s once saying to a fellow who had suffered and survived the assault of no end of maladies, ‘You are like a raft. Much of the time you are half under water, and some of the time three quarters, but all the same you float: you never sink.’ That surely describes Livy” [MTP].