June 2 Friday – At the Prince of Wales Hotel in London, England Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister.
Yes, I’m for the Savage supper. Let us make it Friday the 9th.
Can Chatto and Spalding come—or is that inadmissible? Let me know.
Mrs. Clemens & our obstructions will be glad to see you & your wife any time you will come [MTP].
Sam also replied to Richard Watson Gilder’s (not extant) letter.
It was not the Shipwreck of the Hornet (from my abandoned Autobiography) that I sent to Walker. It must be in Mr. Rogers’ hands—if not, then I don’t know what I did with it. Send down & ask, if you would like to look at it. If you find it and use it, decide its value yourself & send the check to Franklin G. Whitmore, Hartford, Conn. I don’t need money here, England is such a rich country [MTP: Am. Art Assoc catalogs Mar. 4, 1921, Item 144].
Livy began a letter to Susan L. Crane that she finished on June 4.
“Here we are at last, Sue darling, having reached here night before last. We are rather in despair because our trunks have not yet come.
We are very pleasantly situated…but in spite of that we are obliged to go down to the sea for a week. We leave tomorrow. I took Clara this morning to a doctor & he said she had a good deal of catarrh & must get out of London at once” [MTP]. See June 4. for her added line.
Sam also inscribed an aphorism in a copy of More Tramps Abroad, (FE) to Charles C. Auchincloss: “If we try, we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. / Truly yours, / Mark Twain / London /.June 2, 1899” [MTP]. Note: Compare the wording variation with the aphorism given the day before.
The Clemens family made a sudden move to the Grand Hotel in Broadstairs, England, about two hours from London.
The removal to this town was a little sudden. When I reached home Friday evening the family were packing. The eldest daughter (Clara) had been ordered by the doctor to come here at once & stay a week or ten days (It is nothing serious) [June 4 to Chatto]. Note: Broadstairs, Kent is a seaside town on the Dover coast—the air there was thought to be healthier than London’s, evidently. Charles Dickens had been a regular visitor.
Insert: The Grand Hotel in 1899; later named the Albion