October 28 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an autographed aphorism on a notecard to an unidentified person: “Nothing is so ignorant / as a man’s left hand, / except a lady’s watch”

[MTP: Sotheby’s, NY catalog, Oct. 29, 1996].

The New York Times of Nov. 13, 1898, p. 19 ran “In The Austrian Capital” (unsigned) with a Vienna dateline of Oct. 28. The article included this passage on Mark Twain:

A MEDALLION OF MARK TWAIN

Mark Twain seems to find Vienna to his liking, which is no wonder. On the Continent there is neither State nor city that could afford the celebrated humorist more material or more incitement. He is said to be at work on a great book now, although I have not heard it from himself. All the Summer Mark Twain with Mrs. and the Misses Clemens spent at the hydropathic establishment at Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna. The society in which they mostly moved was the families of Count Wyderbuck [sic Wydenbruck], Baron Springer, and other aristocrats. Since the middle of October Mark Twain has been back in Vienna again, but he has not returned to his former apartment, but has taken a large suite of rooms on the fourth floor of the new Hotel Krantz, in the Neuen Market where he has already settled for the winter. He finds the Austrian capital suits him, and the Vienna society knows how to appreciate him.

At an art dealer’s in the Graben are now to be seen medallions with a life-like portrait of Mark Twain, and they are much liked. They by no means betray the fact that he sat without intending it. Unsuspicious of what awaited him, he went to the Deutsches Volkstheater one night, where he greatly enjoyed the performance. Meanwhile, however, a young artist in the next box was drawing away, all through the four acts, in fact, taking the unconscious author’s portrait. Then the young fellow at home modeled the head so beautifully that the Austrian Art Industrial Museum bought one of his medallions. The artist is still attending grammar school, and his name is Arthur Loewenthal. He did not conceive the idea of catching the illustrious American at the theatre until after the latter had kindly but decidedly refused to sit to him, declaring that he had already sat for his portrait so often he could not bear any more sittings.