May 27 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
I keep forgetting to say:
Forward NOTHING to me that comes to your care by either MAIL or EXPRESS.
Please put all such things in a barrel, & leave them there till I come.
(Barrel or furnace—take your choice.) / None of the stuff is ever worth the postage [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Richard Watson Gilder: “Here are samples of those letters. Jean has made the type-copies for me, & by my order. She has followed the curious accenting & punctuation of the originals. / Mrs. Clemens remains about the same—with perhaps a slight improvement” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Charles J. Langdon in Elmira, N.Y.
Livy thanks you very much for your good letter, & for rescript of her account. She wants me to ask you to send $200 to the Lincoln National Bank to be placed to credit of our account.
Livy is making some trifle of progress this past week, we think, & we know she is holding her own at any rate. We have secured a furnished villa twenty miles from Florence for the summer months, but she will not be able to be moved to it. However, she will not suffer here from the heat. Yesterday was entirely comfortable pleasant in this house, yet the thermometer came within 3 degrees of the hottest day Florence has seen in 5 years. That renowned hottest day marked 91 [MTP].
Sam’s notebook: “Countess Seristori / 5 p.m. ‘The Fly’” [NB 47 TS 11].