September 16 Thursday – Sam wrote an aphorism (from chapter 6 of PW) in the Guest Book of the Villa Bühlegg: “Please do not forget this important truth: Habit is habit—& not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stair a step at a time. / Truly yours / Mark Twain / Villa Bühlegg, Sep 16, 1897” [Locher 20].
September 15 Wednesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking that their mail be forwarded for ten days to Salzburg, poste restante, and after that in care of Thomas Cook & Son, Vienna. Livy requested a copy of Review of Reviews which contained a recent article of William Thomas Stead’s on Twain. Sam held in “grateful remembrance” all that Chatto and Spalding had done [MTP].
September 13 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam received a letter (not extant) from H.H. Rogers. He replied that Rogers’ letter “has give us a grand uplift.” The Clemens’ funds invested by Rogers were doing well, and Sam suggested Rogers keep “all the money I can make on the platform” and take the profits Rogers could make it yield, “over and above its own personality.” They both were grateful. As to the debts, he requested Rogers to keep the money “a spell longer” until there might be enough “to sweep off our debts at one wipe.”
September 11 Saturday – The New York Times passed part true, part false information on in “Mark Twain’s New Book,” p. BR1:
September 10 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Francis H. Skrine in Perthshire, Great Britain.
The cigars have come, & they give me a noble relief & vacation from the Swiss article. Thank you ever so much. I do not know, now, what I wrote you; but whatever it was, be charitable—for there was no August day in which I was in my right mind—& there will never be an August day, perhaps, in which I shall be sane. It is our terrible month. …
….
September 7 Tuesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister. Sam didn’t know where MacAlister was spending his summer but hoped he was “having a recuperating good time.” He sent his regards also to Mrs. Kelly (not identified further), then asked if it were English custom to pronounce “trait” as “tray,” that there was a dispute about it in Weggis.
September 3 Friday – In Weggis Sam replied to Chatto & Windus’ letter (letter not extant).
September – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Clara A. Nichols (his NB gives her address as 219 King’s Road Cheasea SW London )with a note to Chatto & Windus . He asked her to “complete the address at the bottom of this page, & mail THE PAGE to Messrs. Chatto & Windus,” adding at the bottom, “— quick”. The note to C&W directed them to put the page on one of the front fly leaves [MTP].
August 30 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to the Editors of the Century , enclosing a tribute to his long-time neighbor, the incomparable scholar James Hammond Trumbull, who died on Aug. 5. Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Underwood Johnson, and Clarence C. Buel were running the Century Co. at this time and published Sam’s piece, “James Hammond Trumbull, The Tribute of a Neighbor” in the Nov.
August 28 Saturday – An anonymous article, “Mr. Stead on Mark Twain,” ran in the London Academy Fiction Supplement, August 28, p. 58-9. Tenney: “An excerpt from the sketch of MT (here attributed to William T. Stead) in the Review of Reviews” [26].