November 24 Thursday – Thanksgiving – Charlemagne Tower, US ambassador in Vienna, gave a reception at his residence on Alleegasse for all Americans. Sam and Clara were in attendance. Dr. and Mrs. Hiester Bucher (Vara Kalbach Bucher) met Sam and Clara, as recorded in Mrs. Bucher’s diary and published in Mary Leah Christmas’ A Honeymoon in Vienna, 1898-1899:
November 21 Monday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled Harper & Brothers: “ROGERS HAS
HADLEYBURG. CLEMENS” [NB 40 TS 51]. Note: MTHHR 380n2 reveals that Henry M. Alden did not understand
the message, unaware of what “Hadleyburg” was. It quotes a letter of this date by Alden to H.H. Rogers: “We do not know exactly what this means, but we shall be glad to consider anything of his that you may have.”
November 19 Saturday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote one sentence on a postcard to Chatto & Windus, perhaps relating to his “quatrains” sent on Nov. 13: “I agree to the unwisdom of it—in fact, in any form or at any figure” [MTP].
November 18 Friday – Estimated to be this day or just before, Andrew Chatto answered Sam’s Nov. 13 “scheme” about a special, limited, expensive edition of “Omar’s Old Age,” which was to be referred to in correspondence as “ABC”:
As a scathing satire on the crazy literary taste of today I consider the ABC a work of great genius—But in all my experience I have never known a case in which the writer of works of like inspiration did not at some time in after life regret the printing of them.
November 17 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.
I put in 5 days on 50 pages of Introduction, & then put it in the fire. A thousand dollars’ worth of work for nothing. An author cannot successfully write about his own books nor a mother about her own children—nothing but a poorly-concealed parade of silly vanities results. No one can do the job creditably but an outsider. No one can do it best for me but Howells or Brander Matthews.
November 16 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to John Malone of the Players Club in N.Y.
November 15 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an aphorism postcard to an unidentified person: “Never put off till to-morrow what can be done day after to-morrow just as well. / Truly Yours/ Mark Twain / Nov. 15/98” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Louise Yates Waring (Mrs. George E. Waring, Jr.)
November 14 Monday – Translation of the article “Mark Twain als Gratulant” from Neue Freie Presse,
Vienna, 15 Nov 1898, p. 6, reveals the celebration the entire Clemens family attended this day:
November 13 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Nov. 6 letter to Richard Watson Gilder. His P.S. focused on the fact that Gilder had already rejected “Platonic Sweetheart”—he was convinced it was another case of “Mental Telegraphy,” which was :
November 11 Friday –At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam answered H.H. Rogers’ Nov. 10 cable with one of his own: “Sign thanks splendid Clemens” [NB 40 TS 50].
Sam then wrote to H.H. Rogers.