June 1 Thursday – At the Prince of Wales Hotel in Kensington (West London), Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.
All right—make it between 12th and 17th if you prefer.
We arrived last evening and the trunks haven’t come. This is a condition of things! [MTP].
Sam also cabled the Hotel Krantz in Vienna: “Ask Cook when those 8 trunks will come” [MTP]. Note: this cable is listed as June only, but given Sam’s note above to Bigelow mentioning no trunks, it’s likely the cable was sent the day after they arrived.
Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell:
“We arrived last night after a journey of several days. Livy concluded she wouldn’t split the last stage in two, but make a single bite of it—& a bite it was! All the way from Cologne to London—from 6 a.m. till 7.30 p.m., & 4 customhouses to dig through. She is well fagged out. So am I.”
Sam was too tired to write more but enclosed a “very nice letter” from Professor Peirce of Harvard
[MTP]. Note: this may have been Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), philosopher, mathemetician and scientist, who did not teach at Harvard but who lectured at or near there. He is best known as the founder of pragmatism, and for contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, and semiotics. He was called “the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America’s greatest logician.” Charles William Eliot, Harvard President from 1869-1909, repeatedly blocked Peirce efforts to join the faculty.
Livy wrote to Percy Spalding, thanking him and his wife for a package of books sent and the flowers.
She also thanked them for “making our arrival so pleasant last evening” [MTP].
Livy also wrote a similar letter to Andrew Chatto, thanking “for the exquisite basket of roses & orchids which I found awaiting our arrival last evening” [MTP].
Sam also inscribed an aphorism in a copy of CY to an unidentified person: “If we try, it is easy to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. / Truly yours, / Mark Twain / June 1st, ‘99” [MTP].
June 1-3 Saturday – Sam left a calling card for R.H. Russell, confirming Wednesday, June 12 at 1 p.m. at the National Club [MTP]. Note: his notebook shows an appointment at the Authors’ Club before noon on June 12 for a photographer [NB 40 TS 56].