August 5 Friday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote a sappy poem to Charles J. Langdon, whom he addressed as “Dear Cholley” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mrs. Kate S. Littlewood (Mrs. Walter Littlewood); (d.1927) in Liverpool [MTP].
Oh yes indeed, your young wards can freely have any book of mine they want—the whole set if they like.
I enclose an order.
August 4 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Aug. 4, ’98. Finished ‘My Platonic Sweetheart[’] a day or so ago” [NB 40 TS 27].
August 3 Wednesday – On a warm day in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
I must stop work a minute and congratulate you upon to-day’s telegraphic peace-prospects. I imagine you are feeling comfortable now.
Here the matter would be immensely discussed and written about—would have been, a week ago—but now it is cut down to a dozen lines, for now the whole reading-matter space in the papers is crowded with Bismarck’s life and death. It has been so for several days ….
August 2 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam inscribed a printed drawing of himself with printed signature to Dr. Edwin Pond Parker: “Dear Parker: / Motto to chew on: Saintliness is next to Selfishness* / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / *Being the offspring of it, you see” [MTP].
Sam also sent another printed postcard with signature and drawing to an unidentified person [MTP].
William Dean Howells wrote from York Harbor, Maine to Sam.
July 29 Friday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, this year a correspondent for the London Times during the Spanish-American War. On May 23 in Tampa, Florida, Bigelow wrote an article exposing the unpreparedness of American troops for combat which ran in Harper’s Weekly. He was denounced as unpatriotic. An excerpt of Bigelow’s article:
THE CONDITION OF THE ARMY
Who Is Responsible ?
July 28 Thursday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote a short note to Siegmund Schlesinger, advising that a MS “written in an unfamiliar hand” was “at a heavy disadvantage.” Sam recommended his MS be sent to Miss V. Kendler in Vienna to be typed. Sam offered to pay the cost [MTP]. Note: Sam collaborated on two comedy plays with Schlesinger and this was likely one. Neither play was performed and both are lost.
July 26 Tuesday – Jean Clemens’ eighteenth birthday.
July 25 Monday – Jean Clemens’ photograph with The “Professor,” her six month old puppy, was taken “the day before I put my hair up” [Harnsberger 229].
July 24 Sunday – Sam’s June 28 letter on Anglo-American unity to Brainard Warner, Jr., United States Consul in Leipzig ran in the N.Y. Times as “Fourth of July in Berlin.”
July 20 Wednesday – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss that it wasn’t possible for him to come over, what with advance rent paid, the “educational arrangements” of his daughters, and all.