August 23 Tuesday – In Bad Nauheim Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens and headed the letter “Private,” then explained it was so “because no newspaper man or other gossip must get hold of it.”
Livy is getting along pretty well, & the doctor thinks another summer here will cure her.
The Twichells have been here four days & we have had good times with them. Joe & I ran over to Hamburg, the great pleasure resort, Saturday, to dine with some friends…
Sam then told of his time with the Prince of Wales, brother of Princess Louise in Ottowa. He’d also been invited to a “near friend” of the Prince to dine on Aug. 25,
& there could be a good time, but the brass band will smash the talk & spoil everything.
The family expected to move to Florence in “ten or twelve days hence,” depending on cooler weather. Sam also wrote he was to take,
Clara to Berlin for the winter — music, mainly, with German & French added. Thus far, Jean is our glib French scholar [MTP].
Sam also wrote a brief letter of introduction to Charles C. Eyre for his friend Laurence Hutton, who wished to live in Florence for a month. Eyre worked for the Florence firm of Lemon & Co., which provided services for tourists and expatriates.
Sam then wrote to Laurence Hutton, enclosing the note to Charles C.Eyre.
The hotel New York is the best one in Florence — anyway, it’s just the most comfortable & satisfactory house, in every way, to be found in those regions. …
We have some acquaintance with two other first-class hotels there, but as I have arranged to have both of them burned down next week, no Irish need apply, you see — nor Scotch.
Ah, now I’ve struck it. I will inthrojooce you to Charles C. Eyre … & he will know about hotels & pensions & everything — & he & his wife are lovable [MTP].
Sam also wrote a long letter to Frederick J. Hall, numbering three items of his concern. He’d received Hall’s Aug. 12 letter (not extant). He discussed the securities purchased in Livy’s name by Mr. Halsey; monies left over from McClure’s Syndicate payments for his Europe letters, and his $3,700 royalty payment. He ended with questions about his value vs. Charles Dudley Warner’s and the following:
…have signed the Daly contracts & will register & mail them to you. You have made a contract which needs no emendations at my hands.
If this blazing weather continues, we shall not go to Florence 2 weeks hence. But it is impossible — it can’t continue. Mrs. Clemens is hoping that by spring we shall be used to housekeeping in Florence, & that you can then run over & take a month’s rest with us & have a refreshing time, & I am hoping the same [MTLTP 315-17]. Note: Augustin Daly had contracted to dramatize AC.
Sam added a PS to this letter concerning a discovery in Venice:
My friend Capt. Frank Mason, U.S. Consul General at Frankfurt a/M. found in Venice, last spring, the only authentic portrait of Columbus in existence, and quietly bought it, but by a cable-mistake it was as quietly sold for a song to a rich Chicago gentleman, and poor Mason gets not a penny for a picture which will soon be worth some hundreds of thousands of dollars — I mean, when the well-kept secret bursts out, through the “Century” Oct. 1.
Sam continued that Mason did own copyright on all engraved reproductions of the portrait, and that if Mason could not make a contract for the printing of a half-million facsimiles, he would contact Hall [MTLTP 317] (editorial emphasis).
Sam also wrote to an unidentified man and provided his autograph with a note about the “spirit of the weather,” meaning, hot [MTP].
Sir Charles Hall sent a telegram to Sam asking him to dine Thursday at the Kursval Hotel at 7:15 to meet the Prince of Wales. Sam wrote on the bottom, “Telegram from Sir Charles Hall, M.P., Aug. 23/92. A college mate & close friend of the Prince. (Invitation not declined. SLC.)” [MTP].