January 21 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled a response to a cable this day from H.H. Rogers. Rogers: “PROFIT $16,000.” Sam: “SPLENDID BIRD, SET HER AGAIN” [MTHHR 386n1 mentions; NB 40 TS 53].
January 14 Saturday – The New York Times, on Jan. 15, ran on p.7, “Mark Twain Writes for Stead.”
LONDON, Jan 14.—Mr. William T. Stead’s new paper, intended to be the mouthpiece of his disarmament campaign, and entitled War Against War, made its appearance to-day. It is not a very striking production, its chief feature being communications from sympathizers, including some American public men.
January 13 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Eva Nansen; Livy added a note to Dr. Fridtjof Nansen. Sam thanked her for the photographs and sentiments and was sorry he and the family were out when the Nansen’s messenger delivered them. Livy added a paragraph to Dr. Nansen:
January 10 Tuesday – A PS excerpt from “Diplomatic Pay and Clothes,” in the March Forum ran in the N.Y. Times, and was published on Mar. 26, 1899, p.23, under “Current Literature.”
Mark Twain Wants $75,000.
From Mark Twain, in the Forum.
January 9 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a short note and a letter to William T. Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, London:
“The Czar is ready to disarm. I am ready to disarm. Collect the others; it should not be much of a task now” [MTP: Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain’s Letters, p.291; MTB 1072].
January 6 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, suggesting omitting “Republican” from “Republican Statemanship,” for a new Century Dictionary that Gilder and “other philologists” were “engaged in constructing” [MTP].
January 5 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote or cabled to Andrew Chatto about the adventures of de Rougemont [MTP]. Note: See Sept. 26, 1898 on Louis de Rougemont.
Sam wrote “Diplomatic Pay and Clothes” datelined “Vienna, January 5.”
January 3 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria Sam added a PS to his Dec. 30, 1898 letter to William Dean Howells.
P.S. Jan. 3. I forgot to say, don’t reveal to any one that I have turned the corner & am prospering. It might get into the papers; & if there is one thing that is more fraught with annoyance than the repute of being in financial straits, it is the repute of being the other way.
January 1 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam’s notebook:
NEW-YEAR, 1899. Note from Schelsinger [not extant], asking another month’s delay. … He would like me to promise the use of my name in advance, I think, & unconditionally.
It will be a marvel if he produces a play which I can work into a shape which will satisfy me, after all his delays. I shan’t allow my name to be used in connection with it unless it shall in all ways warrant the risk [NB 40 TS 52-3].
January – Edwin Wildman’s article “Mark Twain’s Pets,” ran in St. Nicholas Magazine, p.185-8. Tenney: “Describes a visit to MT’s study at Elmira, New York, by E.M. Van Aken, to take pictures of his cats. Two photographs are here reproduced, together with one of the ‘Quarry Farm’ house, and there are engravings of the outside of MT’s octagonal study (here called the ‘Pilot House’; it is covered with vines) and of MT at work inside (‘Drawn from a photograph by E.M. Van Aken’).