February 10 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

“Dinner at the Embassy. Present, the German Ambassador; Marquis Hoyos; Nigra, Italian Minister; Paraty, Portuguese Minister; Löwenhaupt, Swedish Minister; Ghika, Roumanian Minister; Secretaries &c from the various Embassies—& ladies. 30 guests” [NB 40 TS 12]. Note: Charlemagne Tower was the American ambassador and host for this evening. Dolmetsch (p.154) gives a good bio sketch of Tower.

February 9 Wednesday – H.H. Rogers wrote notice of receipt from Sam for $653.34 “which added to the $1,959.99 previously received makes the full amount of my claim against the late firm of C.L. Webster & Company at the time of its failure” [MTHHR 321].

February 8 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote “Private ” to J. Henry Harper, bemoaning the fact that he had let the book about Dreyfus drop after Chatto told him there was no interest in the case in England; Sam didn’t think of asking Harper’s London office, and now the entire world was excited:

February 7 Monday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a formal letter of acceptance to H.H. Rogers for the Mt. Morris Bank’s Jan. 22 and Jan. 26 letter offers of settlement [MTHHR 320].

Alvora Miller wrote from Cheshire, Mass. praising Sam’s ability to make people laugh, and relating a story of finding a 20-year lost copy of IA, and of reading several of his shorter works as well. Sam wrote at the top of the letter “Brer: Read it—all through. / answered” [MTP].

February 6 Sunday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam added to his Feb. 5 letter to Rogers after receiving one from him

February 5 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he finished on Feb. 6.

Yours of Jan. 21 [not extant] was just full of charm. It will be a nobby thing if you do get that letter out of the Mount Morris. I am afraid to think about it, & almost to write about it, I am so superstitious. But if you should land those fellows! (I’ll shut up & wait.).

February 4 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Frank Marshall White (whose letter is not extant).

“It wouldn’t do to print the Comedy, because it would destroy the stage-right in England & could damage it in America.

“That would be rather sorrowful, after all the work I have put on it.”

February 3 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to the Louisville Courier-Journal, thanking them for publishing a “biographette” of his mother. He made two corrections to the article, that his mother lived to her 88th year, and that his “father’s name was John Marshall Clemens, named after the great Virginian” and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; the man whose funeral cracked the liberty bell [MTP: Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain Letters, p. 657-60].

February 2 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Wednesday, Feb. 2. Our wedding anniversary—28 years married. The first sorrow came in the first year—the death of Livy’s father. Our Susy died August 18, 1896—the cloud is permanent, now” [NB 40 TS 8]. Note: Sam omitted the death of his son, Langdon, from this list.

February 1 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote in German to Siegmund Schlesinger. Translation courtesy of Holger Kersten:

Dear Mr. Schlesinger:

Gut! Also werde ich Sie am 3hem Februar expect. Esfruit mich sehr dass Sie unseres heiliges Werkes schon so weit gebrasht habe. (Wiese is mein eigenes Grammatik—Komment nicht aus des Buches.)

Dear Mr. Schlesinger:

Good! So I will expect you on February 3rd. I am glad that you have advanced our holy work this far already.