December 31 Sunday – Clara and Jean Clemens “danced till 1 o’clock this morning, seeing the Old Year out & the New one in” [Jan. 1 to Hutton].

December 30 Saturday – An anonymous review of IA in Author’s Edition Deluxe ran in Athenaeum (London), p. 897. Tenney:

December 26 Tuesday – In London, England Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

If you approve, won’t you please send the enclosed to Harry Harper & see what comes of it?

December 22 Friday – In London, England Sam added a second PS to his Dec. 21 letter to Katharine I. Harrison.

I’ve withdrawn the Harper letter, & hereby enclose it to you, as his letter was to you, & as I don’t know what may have been happening in the Harper affairs since Harper wrote his letter (Dec. 4). …

December 21 Thursday – In London, England Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper.

I return the list of articles for the 2 vols. You will notice that I have made a couple of small transpositions. The arrangement as it now stands, seems to me to be good.

I think it may be well to advertise the fact that the “Peanut Stand” (with original unaffected and unstudied drawings of great merit) and half of the “Xn Science” paper have not been published before [MTP].

December 19 Tuesday – In London, England Sam wrote to James M. Tuohy, London correspondent of the N.Y. World.

I forgot. I am barred by the arrangement which I made lately & which I mentioned to you in a note.

However, I should be barred anyway, by my set policy of not appearing with frequency in print.

December 18 Monday – Somewhat before this date, Mr. & Mrs. Louis I. Seymour sent a fold-out Seasons Greetings card (with only their signature) picturing Capetown, S. Africa’s harbor [MTP].

December 16 Saturday – The Saturday Evening Post anonymously published an article “Mark Twain as a Cub Pilot” [Tenney 29].

Elizabeth Davis Fielder’s article, “Familiar Haunts of Mark Twain,” ran in Harper’s Weekly p. 10-11.

Tenney: “A description of Hannibal, Missiouri, with several photographs, including ‘Laura Hawkins as a girl’ and the ‘Hannibal of Fifty Years Ago.’” [30].

December 12 Tuesday – In London Sam inscribed a photograph of himself for Mrs. Hinck: “We all have music & truth in us, but the most of us can’t get it out. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / To Mrs. Hinck, with kindest regards of her friend. / S.L. Clemens / Dec. 12, 1899” [MTP: Joseph M. Maddalena catalogs, No. 12 Item 92].

Sam applied to Henrick Kellgren for a bad case of lumbago, and he claimed a cure with one treatment [Dec. 22 to Crane].

December 11 Monday – In London, England Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I didn’t really want to write for the World, but I was loafing for a few days, & they furnished me with a text & asked for only 2,000 words & offered $500, & I thought I might as well put in an afternoon on it.

But in my case if I had sent it to Harpers they wouldn’t have wanted it enough to pay the half of that….