December 30 Wednesday – A man with an indecipherable signature from Ad. Goerz & Co. of Berlin (in London) wrote to Sam noting he was sorry to have missed him “the other day” when Sam called.
Sam wrote on the envelope, “New Zealand & Austral. / unpubl.” [MTP].
December 28 Monday
Livy wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks in Providence, R.I., a letter which seems like a response to one not extant from Mary.
We are going on as well as we can. We even talk to each other and smile and perhaps a stranger coming in would not see that we are a broken-hearted family, yet such we are and such I think we must always remain. This is of course the first terrible staggering blow that we have had and I realize that for me there can be but one worse.
December 25 Friday – Christmas – In London Sam wrote in his notebook:
LONDON, 11.30 Xmas morning. The Square & adjacent streets are not merely quiet, they are dead. There is not a sound. At intervals a Sunday-looking person passes along. The family have been to breakfast. We three sat & talked as usual, but the name of the day was not mentioned. It was in our minds, but we said nothing [MTB 1027].
December 24 Thursday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus:
December 23 Wednesday — Livy wrote to Chatto & Windus, “Will you kindly place to my credit in the City Bank, Old Bond St. one hundred pounds (£100.) deducting the same from the four hundred pounds I have in your hands” [MTP].
December 22 Tuesday – In London Sam wrote to Laurence and Eleanor V. Hutton.
I am powerful glad you have spared that poor girl [Helen Keller] over the shoal place. I had every confidence that Mr. & Mrs. Rogers would be found ready for business when the watch was called.
Sam also expressed surrender about the piece, “The Californian’s Tale”:
December 19 Saturday – In London Sam added a PS to his Dec. 18 letter to Franklin G. Whitmore, that he’d forgotten to direct the disconnection of certain electric lights on the ombra and in front of Patrick McAleer’s quarters at the Farmington Ave. house.
December 18 Friday – In London Sam wrote through Livy to Chatto & Windus.
Will you kindly send me eight cloth copies of “Joan” two of The Prince & Pauper & two of the Yankee at the Court of King Arthur & charge to my account [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. and Emilie R. Rogers, now blaming Hartford people for Susy’s death.
This is a line to wish you Merry Christmas.
December 13 Sunday Sam’s notebook for this day:
December 12 Saturday – In London Sam wrote to Col. Andrew Burt whom he’d met at Ft. Missoula on the American leg of his world tour. As were most of his letters from this period, the stationery bore a black mourning border.
We are miserable in our oldest daughter’s death. She died while Mrs. Clemens and Clara were flying (a figure of speech) to her across the Atlantic. She would not have died if we had been there [Koelbel 64].