June 1 Monday – In the afternoon in Bloemfontein, S. Africa, Sam wrote to Livy, having received no letter in nearly 48 hours in the town. He rested easy because she was with Clara. He wrote of the landscape and of his activities of the day, taking notes and working on an “extravagant romance,” he’d thought of for “many years.”
June – Sam joked about the obscurity of Robert Browning’s Sordello in NB 38 TS 32, doubting whether Browning himself understood some passages. He attributed the joke to Carlyle Smythe [Gribben 106].
McClure’s Magazine VII p.73-8 ran “Portraits of Mark Twain,” with fifteen half-tone portraits of Sam and his birthplace, along with a brief, conventional biographical sketch [Tenney 24].
May 31 Sunday – Sam spent the day sightseeing in Bloemfontein. In FE:
May 30 Saturday – The Clemens party arrived in Bloemfontein, S. Africa at 4 p.m. after “18 hours steady travel….Fine cars, easy riding, all the conveniences.” He thought the veldt in winter “as beautiful as Paradise,” and Bloemfontein “even prettier than Pretoria” [Philippon 19; June 1 to Livy]. Sam wrote a letter of admiration to Mrs. Chapin (Adele):
May 29 Friday – In Johannesburg Sam wrote to his beloved:
Dear, dear, Livy dear, it was a busy day yesterday & day before & on one or the other I failed to write you — the first failure, I believe.
I saw Mr. Davis last night, & he gave me good news of you & Clara — that you were well & enjoying life; Poultney Bigelow has arrived, & is mighty likeable….He leaves for Natal soon & I hope he will find you still in Durban. He sails thence for Zanzibar. I love you most dearly, sweetheart. / Saml [MTP].
May 28 Thursday – At 10 a.m. in Krugersdorp, Mrs. G. Seymour drove Sam and Smythe to the train station. From Sam’s notebook about Mrs. Seymour and the ride to the station:
May 27 Wednesday – In the morning in Pretoria, S. Africa Sam wrote to Livy, who evidently had tried to reach him by more than one telegraph.
May 26 Tuesday – In Pretoria, Transvaal, Sam met with President Paul Kruger. Tenney suggests, “it is possible that friends saw the interview [Press of May 25] and urged him to set matters right. Twain said little of the meeting in his notebook:”
May 25 Monday – In Pretoria, South Africa Sam wrote to Livy:
Livy darling, I am sending “A Monk of Fife” to you. I have just finished it. There is no “Joan” in the May Harper; so it is finished. …
May 24 Sunday – In Pretoria Carlyle Smythe led a Press reporter to interview Sam in the Grand Hotel. Sam was talkative giving the journalist an hour “full of wit and entertaining items,” including a desire to meet the “man of the hour,” President Kruger. He then gave the reporter an autograph and a curious line:
Truth is stranger than fiction — to some people. But I am measurably familiar with it / Truly yours, Mark Twain. / May 24, 1896 [Parsons, “Clubman in S.A.” 248].