March 26 Monday – London: Sam was free in the daytime for a meeting with John Y. MacAlister [Mar. 23 postcard #2 to MacAlister].
The New York Times, p. 1, ran a squib:
Mark Twain Coming Home Soon.
HARTFORD. March 25.—Letters received from Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) say that he and his family will return soon to Hartford and take up their permanent home there.
March 27 Saturday – Orion Clemens finished his Mar. 26 to Sam. He discussed a City “Platform” about water and meter rates, and included a clipping from the Keokuk paper of the Platform [MTP].
This is the day that Sam suggested James Ross Clemens visit [Mar. 25 to J.R. Clemens].
March 27 Monday – In Budapest, Hungary, Sam sent an aphorism to an unidentified person:“It is not easy for us to bear prosperity. (Another man’s, I mean.) / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / March 27, 1899” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Bertha von Suttner to decline an invitation (not extant) of some sort. He was booked only for one engagement in April and after that he would take a holiday for the season [MTP].
March 27 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Burlingame, 11 am / Mr. Lucy of ‘Punch,’ lunch 1.30. / Enid Stoker, tea 4.30. / Lady Pontifex tea 5.30 / Görz, dinner, 7.30 / MacAlister, 11.30 p.m” [NB 43 TS 6].
March 28 Sunday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Pamela Moffett. Evidently Pam had written and sent a book, Belief of Unitarians for Sam and Livy to read. He wrote that he’d directed Harpers to send her a copy of JA, something he “supposed” he’d “attended to long ago,” which infers she might have asked for it. She also must have complained about Sally Moffett leaving too much money to her daughter (unnamed) for Sam replied:
March 28 Monday – Sam’s notebook covers this day and a midnight reading at a home for English Governesses:
Monday, March 28, ’98. A splendid spring day. Charley Langdon and Jervis have reached London, & will come here about mid-April. They will tell us about Katy Leary, who was cabled for, two or three weeks ago, left us, after nearly 18 years’ service in our family. Prof. Dr. Winternitz called & examined Livy & Clara, to see if the Kaltenleutgeben baths will suit the complexion of their ailments.
March 28 Tuesday – The Clemens family’s last full day in Budapest, Hungary. On one of their days in Budapest Ferenc Kossuth (1841-1914), leader of the Independence Party in the Hungarian Parliament, called at their hotel. Dolmetsch: “Clemens had heard Lajos Kossuth [Ferenc’s father, a Hungarian hero] lecture in St. Louis in the late 1850s on one of the barnstorming tours of the United States, and like most Americans, the Clemenses venerated this great ‘Champion of Liberty’” [59].
March 28 Wednesday – In London, England Sam cabled James R. Clemens and Katharine Boland
Clemens: “WE SEND LOVE AND THE HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS” [MTP]. Note: no doubt—a little Clemens!
Muriel Clemens Gotwals (1900-1989); exact birthday not determined.
March 29 Tuesday – The performances at Miss Virginia Bailie’s Home for English Governesses ran past midnight into the wee hours.
March 29 Wednesday – In the afternoon Sam and daughters went to a tea party with music and instruction for girls in Magyar dances. Clementina Katona Abrányi (1858 -1932), Hungarian feminist author, remembered Mark Twain at this gathering as “sensitive, reflective and introverted,” impressed by his “erudition” and progressive opinions on women’s issues. Dolmetsch: “Anna Katona, ‘the first Hungarian to discover the serious Mark Twain behind the laughter’” [59].
March 29 Thursday – The New York Times, p. 2, ran a memo sent from the Hartford Courant:
Mr. Clemens to Return to Hartford.
From the Hartford (Conn.) Courant.
March 3 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Gilbert Burgess (local), declining his “suggestion” of honorary membership in an unspecified club. He declined due to his bereavement.
March 3 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, “obliged for the good news” that Rudyard Kipling was going to get well [MTP].
March 3 Saturday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam gave a reading of a paper before the Copyright Committee of the House of Lords, arguing that perpetual copyright be given to authors.
He then wrote to C.F. Moberly Bell, editor of the London Times, asking for a copy of the reading for the Associated Press to cable to America [MTP].
March 30 Wednesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, thanking him for the FE with special binding that had arrived for Princess Pauline Metternich. He also said that his niece, Annie Moffett “has those old pictures of me” and offered her address in Fredonia, N.Y. [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Dr. Rudolf Lindau:
March 30 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria Sam signed sheets for the deluxe Uniform editions which had arrived prior to leaving for Budapest. He shipped them to Frank Bliss by “the best express-firm in Vienna” [Mar. 31 to Bliss].
March 30 before – Frank Bliss wrote to Sam about discrepancies in origins of the “Jumping Frog” story:
[Written in top margin:] This is yr a/c of how you originally heard the Story, told by a man who was not telling it to his hearers as a thing new to them. He was a dull person and ignorant he… [in bottom margin:] Then follows the Greek Story (Sidgwick) of Jumping Frog.
March 31 Thursday – The following from “From the ‘London Times’ of 1904” may or may not have happened; Burnam posits that this “flashback, the scene of which is Vienna, the time March 31, 1898, or some eight months before the tale appeared in print.” He then quotes from the story:
March 31 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to Frank Bliss, that he added to on Apr. 2. Included were notes of a biographical sketch of Clemens from which Samuel E. Moffett might write the finished article.
I want SET NO 1 of the DE LUXE edition to go to Mr. Rogers, & to be charged to me (minus agent’s commission.)
March 4 Thursday – H.H. Rogers sent Sam a cable c/o “Bookseller” that the contracts had been signed. This cable was returned on Mar. 5, so a second one was sent c/o Chatto & Windus, which was delivered [Mar. 23 to Chatto & Windus]. Note: neither cable is extant.
March 4 Friday – Sam also wrote to an unidentified person “Truth is stranger than Fiction; but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth is not” [MTP]. Note: was also in “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar,” FE ch. 15.
March 4 Sunday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.
March 5 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James Ross Clemens in London.
Your note [not extant] has just arrived this evening—it has been searching round for one for a day or two.
March 5 Saturday – The New York Times ran “English Praise Mark Twain,” p. 7 datelined Mar. 5, likely from the London Times:
ENGLISH PRAISE MARK TWAIN
Dr. McAlister Eulogizes his Conduct
In Paying His Webster & Co. Debts.
LONDON, March 5.—The English press has universally printed praises of the statement that Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) has paid the last of his Webster & Co. debts. Dr. McAlister, writing to The Times on the subject, says:
March 5 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to James Ross Clemens, who evidently had sent his picture (not extant).
We were very glad to get the picture, & should have been still gladder if you had brought it yourself. You look neither strong nor hearty, & the trip could have done you good. Possibly we may have the pleasure of seeing you by the end of the summer, as we are hoping to end our long exile then, & shall expect to spend a moment or two in England on our way home.