December 29 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria Sam replied to H.H. Rogers’ Dec. 17 (not extant).
“Yours of the 17th arrived this morning & is immensely gratifying in various ways. Lord, we are glad to see those debts diminishing! For the first time in my life I am getting more pleasure out of paying money out than pulling it in.”
December 27 Monday – Sam’s notebook:
At Fraulein Ries’s Monday. Second sitting for bust. Her bust of Baron von Berger is perfect. The “Lucifer” is fine & strong & impressive—majestically so, I think. Ries is a quaint & naïve, & interesting young creature— Russian. She dropped the fact incidentally, that her grand hellion there in the corner (Lucifer) was begun as the Virgin, but looked too masculine for the part, so she turned the Mamma of God into Satan!
December 26 Sunday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Frank Marshall White, gently chiding him for not showing “grace” to his letter, and saying there was nothing to telegraph to-night and nothing new this day except the resignation of Count Kasimir Felix Badeni, which was “an ordinary & foregone event” not worth telegraphing. What he had he’d sent to the N.Y. World the night before, which request had beaten White’s by 17 hours [MTP].
December 25 Saturday – Christmas – In Vienna, Austria Sam inscribed (probably a copy of FE) to Katie: “ To our seventeen- year-old Katie with the affection of the Author. Vienna, Dec. 25. 1897” [MTP]. Note: This may have been a servant girl; not Katy Leary, unless Sam was teasing Leary about her age; she was seventeen when she came to work for the Clemens family.
Sam telegraphed the N.Y. World a summary of news for the week [Dec. 26 to White].
December 24 Friday – Walter Bliss of American Publishing Co. wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but mentioned in Livy’s Jan. 9 to Bliss [MTP].
December 23 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, clarifying that the book should be made out in Livy’s name, as with the other books
[MTP]. Note: This likely refers to the Dec. 18 request for FE to be sent to Frau von Versen.
December 22 Wednesday – The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that 5,000 additional copies of More Tramps Abroad, (FE) were printed (totaling 18,000 to date). The official English publication date was Nov. 25 [Welland 238]. See Aug. 12, Nov. 10, Nov. 25, Mar. 8, 1898, Oct. 11, 1900, and Aug. 7, 1907 for other print run amounts, totaling 30,000.
December 21 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
Sam agreed that the letters from many of the creditors made his “heart glad.” With the “hateful burden” of debt soon to be extinguished, made his “same heart as light as Colby’s brain or the soul of the Mount Morris.” He commented on Rogers’ praise of FE and of the struggle he’d made to write it:
December 18 Saturday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, requesting that a book (FE) be sent to Frau von Versen (née Clemens) in Berlin [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Katharine I. Harrison, the letter not extant but referenced in Harrison’s Jan. 7, 1898 letter [MTHHR 314].
December 17 Friday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Dec. 29 reply.
Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Sam letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Jan. 13, 1898 reply [MTP].