January 24 Sunday – Sam’s notebook from Berlin:

When I had been in bed 11 days, Frau von Versen came Jan. 24, & brought a note inviting me on the part of the Emperor to come to the palace at 11.30 a.m. & witness the consecration of some flags. I wrote my thanks & regrets. Frau von V. came again that day or the next & said the Emperor had commanded her to prepare dinner for him & me in her house — the date of the dinner to be the day that I shd be well enough [NB 31 TS 21].

January 23 Saturday – Livy wrote for Sam to Frederick J. Hall (not extant) [Jan. 25 to Hall].

January 21 Thursday – Livy wrote for Sam to Frederick J. Hall:

Your letter of Jan. 7th has just reached us [not extant]…Like all your letters it was a great comfort to me….I am anxious that Mr. C. should take that sixteen thousand that he will have from his story and letters and invest it elsewhere because it surely is very bad to have all ones eggs in one basket….Therefore he intends to invest $16,000 through Mr. Halsey.

January 20 Wednesday – Sam was in bed with pneumonia. During this week he wrote and revised his sixth and last letter for McClure’s Syndicate, “The German Chicago.” Paine calls this “a finely descriptive article on Berlin, and German customs and institutions generally” [MTB 936]. An excerpt:

January 19 Tuesday – Townsend Rushmore wrote from Plainfield, N.J. to Sam, having been reminded of a passage in IA of the “voice of the turtle that was heard in the land,” by a new edition of Ben Hur, p. 473 Vol. 2 [MTP].

Mary E. Bartlett wrote from Cheyenne about her “Mental Telegraphy” experience in Wyoming [MTP].

January 18 Monday – William H. Dana wrote from Warren, Ohio asking Sam where he might look for an unnamed book by Thomas Fuller Sam had referred to in a letter to a “young lady entering society” he’d seen in an unspecified journal [MTP].

Lotos Club sent Sam a form letter soliciting funds for a $100,000 second mortgage bond [MTP].

Scott H. Palmer wrote from Glenburn, Penn. to interest Sam in an “invention consisting in an appliance for automatic signaling on railways” [MTP].

January 17 Sunday – In Berlin, Sam was in bed suffering from pneumonia. Paine writes,

January 16 Saturday – In Berlin, Sam was in bed suffering from pneumonia.

Also published in The Illustrated News of the World, a third segment of “The Tramp Abroad Again” (New York issue), This is a serial segment using another name for AC. The periodical ran segments on Nov. 28, 1891 and Jan. 9, 16, 1892. The McClure Syndicate had the serial rights for AC prior to its publication by Webster & Co. in book form [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].

January 15 Friday – Delancey W. Teske wrote from Providence, R.I. for Sam’s autograph [MTP].

January 14 Thursday – Berlin, Germany. Paine writes that “Clemens awoke with a heavy cold and lung congestion. He remained in bed, a very sick man indeed, for the better part of a month” [MTB 935]. Note: Sam would spend 38 days in bed [Feb. 22 to E.A. Reynolds Ball].