June 1, before – Sam wrote to Daniel Willard Fiske, asking help in finding a furnished villa near Florence, Italy. He divulged that he was also writing Mrs. Ross , (Janet D. Ross ) and that daughter Clara was also writing Miss Hall and Miss Blood to keep an eye out for a place “during the next 5 or 6 months.” Livy added a PS in the top margin: “Do you know of any very good physicians in Florence?”
May 16 Saturday – Sam went to Fairhaven, Mass. to visit H.H. Rogers, who was recovering from an appendectomy. The men played billiards, went on a ride, then after dinner Rogers took to his bed; Sam and William E. Benjamin (Rogers’ son-in-law) played more billiards till 11:30 p.m. [May 17 to Livy].
April, late or May early – Sam wrote a short essay, “Reflections on a Letter and a Book,” so titled later by Paine. The piece was a response to a letter and book sent him by Hilary Trent (aka R.M. Manley). Sam was often irritated by such requests to read literary works, and took this instance to wax ridicule on the selfishness of the human race [AMT 1: 181, 520n181.3].
April – Mark Twain’s humorous article “Instructions in Art” first ran in
Metropolitan Magazine this month and in May, 1903. In part, with some of his drawings (inserts).
March and after – Alice Jane Chandler Webster (“Jean”) (1876-1916), daughter of the late Charles Luther Webster, and Sam’s great-niece, wrote When Patty Went to College, which was published in Mar. 1903 (see Gribben p. 753). Sam referred to this book in one of the notes slipped into Livy’s sickroom which dates it somewhat. Here is the note:
There, now, my darling, Clara was here a while ago & says I be’aved ’an’some & was a cherub. Praise from Sir Hubert! [ a popular expression]
February – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied with one line to Frederick A. Duneka: “This is a most dam good Conclusion—put it in, Duneka / SLC” [MTP].
Prof. William Milligan Sloane wrote from NYC to Sam. “I want you here on March 5th at one o’clock to lunch with Sidney Lee and I want you very badly. Do come, there will be some of your best friends.” Hearing “conflicting accounts” of Livy, Prof. Sloane hoped she was no worse but much better [MTP].
January – The North American Review included the second installment of Mark Twain’s series, “Christian Science II” (p.1-9) written in 1897-8 in Vienna. The installments ran monthly From Dec. 1902 through the Apr. 1903 issue. A book would result from these articles, though Harpers would delay it till 1907.
December 3 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Jean, Katy & I returned from the Elmira wedding” [NB 45 TS 34].
Note: Sam dared not travel alone with Jean due to her epilepsy, and so took Katy along, who had family in Elmira.
November 28 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Train at 7.07. / 7.07 / Birth-day, dinner (not the 29th or 30th) Train leaves here at 7.07. / Wounds our conventions rather than our convictions. The convictions of one age are the conventions of the next” [NB 45 TS 34]. Note: evidently there had been some changes of the birthday dinner date; Sam entered a few things to say at the event in his Nov. 30 NB entry, and specified there it was to be the 29th; it wound up being this day. The 29th he was in Elmira at his niece’s wedding. The Nov. 30 entry:
October 24 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to John White Alexander to decline the same dinner that he declined to Chauncey Depew on Oct. 23 [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Samuel E. Moffett in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. “I am just leaving for Princeton, but stop to say she is getting along pretty well, but will be bedridden some months” [MTP].