March – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow that he was sending a five-year supply of granules that Livy took for dysentery when watermelon wasn’t in season.

“I wouldn’t ask a physician any questions, for they know a great deal less about dysentery than a cow does…Discharge the physician and give them a trial” [MTP].

Sam wrote a maxim to an unidentified person: “Be good & you will be lonesome. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Viennna, March, 1899” [MTP].

Sam’s essay, “Diplomatic Pay and Clothes,” first appeared in Forum, Mar. issue. It was collected in My Debut as a Literary Person, with Other Essays and Stories (1903) and The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd Collected 2: 1004].

An oil portrait of Mark Twain was done this month by Antal Z. Izer [MTP]. Note: Izer was not further identified.

Insert: “The American Humorist”: Life Magazine Mar. 2, 1899 p. 173.