May – Sam’s option on the sale of Jan Szczepanik’s Raster machine in America was allowed to expire. Rogers had not been enthusiastic and now America was at war with Spain. Letters from Sam to Rogers for the period reveal Sam’s “increasingly crestfallen responses” to Rogers’ letters on the subject, none of which are extant [Dolmetsch 204]. Note: See photos of both of Szczepanik’s machines p. 202-3. Sam remained friends with the young inventor and also admired his capitalist backer, Ludwig Kleinberg.
May 5 Thursday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.
He gave his future address the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben; Sam often did this when about to move; they would not go to the health resort until May 20.
May 6 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, enclosing an article intended to “excite public curiosity about the Fable, & make people hunt around & get hold if it and circulate it everywhere.”
listed in American Book Prices- Current Vol. 21 p.753 (1915) . See also Dolmetsch, 187 -9, 337n9 for the claim that this piece was written in Feb. of 1898. The article was about France’s treatment of Monaco. It was for:
May 7 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam telegraphed Chatto & Windus:
RETURN THE THICK LETTER POSTED YESTERDAY = TWAIN [MTP]. Note: Livy wanted the May 6 article suppressed; see May 13.
May 8 Sunday – Sam’s notebook (May 9 about this day):
Visitors yesterday, Countess Wydenbruck-Esterhazy, Austrian; Nansen & his wife, Norwegians; Freiherr de Laszowski, Pole; his niece, Hungarian; Madame XXX, Hollander; 5 Americans & 3 other nationalities (French, German, English.) Certainly there is plenty of variety in Vienna [NB 40 TS 20]. Note: Dolmetsch points out that Sam referred to Laszowski mistakenly as “Freiherr” rather than “Graf” (count) [147].
May 9 before – Sam’s notebook entry right before the May 9 entry:
“During 8 years, now, I have filled the post—with some credit, I trust—of self-appointed Ambassador at Large of the U.S. of America——without salary” [NB 40 TS 20].
May 9 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Today, the Nansens to luncheon” [NB 40 TS 20]. Dolmetsch writes,
May 11 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam inscribed a copy of TS to an unidentified person:
Part of my plan has been to / try to remind adults of what / they were themselves once. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain/ Vienna, May 11, 1898 [MTP: Alan C. Fox catalog, No.1, Item 146].
May 12 Thursday – Laurence Hutton’s book A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs (1898) likely arrived this day or the next, since Sam read some of it before retiring the following night [May 13 to Hutton].
May 13 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus [MTP].
The books came. Many thanks.
The MS too. I still approve of it. But the attitude of mind which moved Mrs. Clemens to want it suppressed, remains. From the beginning the family have been rabid opponents of the war & I’ve been just the other way. I am indifferent about the article now. The time to print it was before Manila.
May 14 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a long letter to Lawrence B. Evans, who had written (not extant) explaining a review. Sam thought Evans was defending England against him, though he couldn’t imagine why, giving several reasons he did not dislike the country [MTP: Varleriani]. Note: full text not available. Evans had been a professor in Berlin during the family’s 1893 stay there. He was later chairman of the history dept. at Tufts University.
May 16 Monday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Mollie Clemens.
The “boy-picture holding the printers’ stick”—I remember it well. It was a daguerrotype. I destroyed it in Pamela’s house in St Louis in the spring of 1861 [Note: Sam did not destroy all copies of the picture, which the MTP puts a Nov. 29, 1850 date on and the photographer as G.H. Jones]
May 17 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote two notes to Chatto & Windus. The first was to send their new address in Kaltenleutgeben; the second was to ask them to “send this shilling book,” which implies an enclosure. Sam thought they would leave on May 19 [MTP]. Note: they left on May 20.
May 18 Wednesday – Carl Kaiser-Herbst (1858 -1940), Viennese artist, wrote from Vienna to Sam: “Many thanks for your book, which I shall value highly. But you have sent me a finished work in return [for] an unfinished sketch—and I remain your debtor!” [MTP]. Note: the subject of the unfinished sketch was not determined.
May 19 Thursday – Vienna. This was the Clemens family’s planned move day to Kaltenleutgeben, some 45 minutes by train, but the move was delayed one day for an unknown reason [May 20 to Schlesinger].
May 20 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Siegmund Schlesinger.
“We go to Kaltenleutgeben to-day to see if we shall like it. If we find it pleasant I think the family will be content to spend the summer there instead of going to a more distant place.”
Sam gave their new address as the “Paulhof” Kaltenleutgeben [MTP]. Note: Countess Pauline Fürstin von Metternich found the Villa Paulhof (insert) for the Clemenses [Dolmetsch 134-5].
Kaltenleutgeben – From May 20 to Oct. 14 1898. Dolmetsch writes:
May 21 Saturday – The London Spectator p.735 reviewed FE. Tenney: “It would have been easier to write a straightforward travel book than to write five hundred pages of uneven humor, and it would have given greater pleasure to the reader. ‘To be just, however, there are good chapters here and there, and a few pages of very fair fun; and although the book is not likely to add to the author’s reputation, it is readable and sometimes entertaining’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p.
May 24 Tuesday – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to an unidentified man, thanking him for his kind offer to send him some of his books—he would “now & then take advantage.” Sam had forgotten the address of the artist the man had inquired about (not extant) but Ludwig Kleinberg owned the picture and had given Sam permission for it to be reduced and used on postcards. He sent Kleinberg’s address [MTP].
May 26 shortly before – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben Sam wrote to Joe Twichell:
May 27 Friday – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Dr. Thomas S. Kirkbride, who had mentioned a maid in his service at this boarding house (pension). The Clemenses needed a cook and would “pay her expenses going & coming” from Vienna [MTP]. See also Livy to Kirkbride, May 26. On May 31 Sam reported to Rogers that they had a cook, so it may be this feeler was productive.
Sam’s notebook:
May 30 Monday – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Siegmund Schlesinger, who evidently had asked for more time, likely on their play collaborations. Sam wrote him to “Take another month—and don’t hurry; hurrying doesn’t help a sick man to get well” [MTP].
May 31 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. First, he was “very glad indeed” to learn that Rogers’ daughter, Cara Broughton (Mrs. Urban H. Broughton), was now healthy, with no “peril” to her life.
June – Sam sent a part-printed subscription form to the Vienna Neue Freie Presse (“ New Free Press”) seeking a run of July 1 to Oct. 31, and asking to “Please send the bill by the postman.” Under the line for “character” (title), Sam wrote “Hasn’t any” [MTP: Bomsey Autographs catalogs, No. 46, Item 103].
A. Hoffman puts this month as the one Clara Clemens decided to give up the piano as a career and to choose what her late sister excelled in, singing. Though he errs on this date, he observes:
June 1 Wednesday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam, pasting a Hartford Courant clipping from May 27 at the top of the first page (not in file).
June 4 Saturday – Sam wrote a sketch given this date in Kaltenleutgeben, unpublished until 2009: “A Group of Servants” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi, 61-9; AMT 1: 120-4]. Note: title assigned by Paine. Sam describes the new servants in this getaway village near Vienna, including one “garrulous older maid” he nicknamed “Wuthering Heights.” See last source p. 500 n121.21 for speculation as to why Sam chose the name of Emily Brontë’s classic novel.
June 8 Wednesday – Clara Clemens’ 24th birthday. Sam’s notebook entry of June 11 describes the family’s collective ignoring of such events since the death of Susy: