March 11 Friday – Barrow, Wade, Guthrie & Co. Accountants sent Sam an annual statement of their audit of Webster & Co.’s books, “showing the result of the two departments to be a net profit of $16,743.28 of which the Captial Account of Mr. S.L. Clemens has been credited with two-thirds thereof viz: $11,162.19, and the Special Account of Mr. F. J. Hall with one-third viz: $5,581.09” [MTP].
March 9 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook in Mentone, France:
Mentone, Mch. 9. Letter from Alfred Arnold proposing to dramatize Sellers [AC] for Crane, I to have “half of the revenue from the play;” no contract for its production to be made without my sanction of terms, &c; I to approve play or it not to be produced. Says he dramatized “Dr. Rameau” & has had experience.
Answered that if my other offer comes to nothing, shall be glad to take the matter with him again.
March 8 Tuesday – In Menton, France Sam wrote to Elisabeth N. Fairchild (Mrs. Charles S. Fairchild) in Boston, late neighbors of the Howellses. Mrs. Fairchild had written (not extant) to Sam in Berlin, to introduce him to a Mr. Gebbord. Her letter obviously contained word of William Dean Howells and his depression:
Your letter overtook us here, & we shall not be in Berlin again until next fall or winter; but we shall hope that Mr. Gebbord will come & see us then.
March 7 Monday – In Menton, France, Livy wrote to Alice H. Day. Willis writes of her letter:
Livy felt pangs of separation with the twinges of her bad heart. To Alice Day she wrote of her fears of being ill abroad. “I say to Mr. Clemens sometimes ‘think of the horror of dying over here among these new people.’ I want to be with my own people or my own old friends when I go out of this world” [202].
March 6 Sunday – “The Cradle of Liberty” ran as “Mark Twain in the Cradle of Liberty” in the Chicago Tribune, and other McClure Syndicate newspapers. It was reprinted on Mar. 13 in the N.Y. Sun, and with changes included in What is Man? And Other Essays (1917) [Budd, Collected 2: 1000]. A Shorter version ran in the Boston Daily Globe, p.17 under the title, “GAVE A MOUNTAIN A JOB.”
March 5 Saturday – The Illustrated London News ran a second segment of “An Austrian Health-Factory.” Other segments ran on Feb. 20, and Mar. 12, 1892 [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].
In Menton, Sam wrote to Dr. Edward K. Root of Hartford. The first paragraph is in German and mentions Annie Trumbull, then he wrote:
But I am out of German. It left me (the remaining ragged fragments of it) when I crossed the frontier a day or two ago.
March 4 Friday – The Clemenses arrived in the resort town of Menton, France [Livy to Trumbull Mar 5].
March 3 Thursday – On this day or the next the Clemens family arrived in Menton, France, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in southeastern France on the border of Italy. Menton has the nickname, “the pearl of France.” The Mediterranean town boasts a warm micro-climate, with lemon, tangerine and orange groves. Rodney writes this as a five-day trip, but gives Mar. 1 as the departure date rather than Feb. 29 [141].
March 2 Wednesday – Sam and Livy were in transit to Menton, France.
Robert McClure, brother of Samuel S. McClure, wrote to Sam at his Paris address from his London office. Sam would forward this letter to Hall on Mar. 8.
Dear Mr. Clemens: —
I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 26th ult., also manuscript of the fifth article which I am having type-written and forwarded to New York.
March 1 Tuesday – Sam and Livy were in transit to Menton, France.