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].
May 23 Saturday – In Johannesburg, Adele Chapin arrived to help Sam pack, and with her husband Robert Chapin took him to the train station. The trio left with Carlyle G. Smythe at 10:46 a.m. and traveled the 46 miles to Pretoria, Transvaal, S. Africa, arriving in the early afternoon. In his May 24 letter to Joe Twichell he wrote: