June 1 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote again to Daniel Willard Fiske.
The cablegram [not extant] arrived this morning, promising the particulars, & was very welcome. Mr. [George Gregory] Smith may have sent an earlier letter; if so, it tried to find us in Hartford & got lost. We tried to trace it; but failed. When Mrs. Clemens (who is a strenuous objector) lets me alone, I use no address but just “New York City”—then the answering letter cannot miscarry, for I always keep the General Postoffice posted as to my whereabouts; but if I say “Riverdale” trouble follows, oftener than otherwise.
Mrs. Clemens is naturally desirous of knowing the number & size of the rooms in the villa, & if the warming-arrangements are good. Also if there is a bedroom & water-closet on the ground floor, for she is tired living upstairs, & in this house she has to.
I have engaged passage in the “Lahn,” which sails for Genoa Sept. 26, & we believe Mrs. Clemens is going to be strong enough to endure the voyage by that time. The doctors say she might even make the voyage now. But of course we don’t want to hurry—the early part of October will be early enough to arrive in Florence. It will still be hot there. We remember.
If the particulars jibe with Mrs. Clemens’s ideas it will be joyful news for her, & better than medicine! [MTP]. Note: George Gregory Smith (b.1845), attorney from a prominent Vermont family, friend of Fiske’s and a close neighbor of the Clemenses in Florence for the 1903-4 period. See more on Smith in Orth’s article, MTJ (Fall 2003) p.27-36. Fiske enlisted Smith’s help to find an appropriate villa, as Fiske was just leaving for the summer [Orth 30]. The Clemens family would not sail for Italy until Oct. 24, 1903 on the Princess Irene.
Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.
I expect to arrive Wednesday 12.05 noon. [June 3]
I shall see Frank Bliss before I return. Ask him to look at his books and tell you how many copies of “Innocents Abroad” have been sold from the beginning down to the present time, exclusive of the uniform edition.
How many “Roughing It.”?
How many “Gilded Age”?
How many “Tom Sawyer”?
How many “Sketches”?
How many “Tramp Abroad”?
How many “Equator”?
How many “Puddn Head Wilson”?
Set the figures down opposite each book as he gives them to you, and hand them to me when I come. Ask the most intelligent and level-headed of Bliss’s directors to come and see me at your house during
Wednesday afternoon or in the evening. Tell him I ask this only because I have only a short time to stay and I don’t want to be seen on the streets, and be obliged to go around and pay calls.
If you do not know which is the most capable director, don’t ask Bliss, but ask Bliss’s lawyer, Gross.
I may want to talk with the other directors privately and separately, but I will determine as to that after talking with the one above specified. / Sincerely Yours. …
Whether I go to Hartford, or don’t—I will send you an unsigned telegram [MTP].
Sam’s notebook: “Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt. I met the author once at the Authors Club in his age. He looked it.
Alice was a poor thing, & Ben was a cad” [NB 46 TS 18]. Note: Gribben identifies Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902) as the author of this song, “Ben Bolt, or oh! don’t you remember” (1848). A line in the song asks, “Don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?” [223].
Will M. Clemens wrote on a March 3, 1903 reply of Isabel Lyon from Clemens, putting his proposed payments of $ 500 for a 2 hour interview, $1,000 for a 3,000 word short story [MTP]. Note: just whay it took over two months for Will to reply, when before he expressed urgency for a “client” is not clear.