May 21 Saturday – Sam’s notebook in Venice, dated May 22:
Tried to make the Johnsons, Browns, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mrs. James T. Fields, Mr. Washington understand (with Clara’s help) the old puzzle of Whitmore taking me around the loop in his buggy. Of course they all laughed at my stupidity at first, but this is just a “$100-bill & pair of boots” puzzle before they get done with it.
May 20 Friday – In Venice, Italy Livy wrote to Grace King concerning the family’s change in plans for the next winter:
We have given up Paris and have taken a villa in Florence for next winter. Mr Clemens had a great dread of Paris and even a suburb did not attract him. We found the singing advantages would probably be good for Susy and so decided rather suddenly to take up a villa a little way out of town [Rodney 144].
May 19 Thursday – Tillotson & Son wrote to Sam [Reference card only at MTP].
May 18 Wednesday – Angelo Heilprin for Academy of Natural Sciences wrote from Phila. to Sam soliciting funds for the relief of Lt. Peary, “wintering in the Arctic north” [MTP]. Note: Robert E. Peary would claim to be the first to reach the North Pole in 1909.
May 17 Tuesday – In Venice, Italy Sam wrote to Augustin Daly, enclosing a play he’d had read to him in Rome, written by Julian Corbett. It sounded good to Sam but he admitted knowing nothing about how it would play. If Daly liked it he might write to Corbett at the village of Thames Ditton, Surrey, England. Otherwise, Frederick J. Hall would ship it back to Corbett [MTP].
May 16 Monday – Sam’s notebook in Venice:
Monday, May 16, took Antonio the gondolier at 7 francs a day.
Smoking party Monday 8.30 to 12 p.m. at Horatio Brown’s, 559 Zattere (Ca. Torresella) [NB 31 TS 46].
† – Susy Clemens wrote to Louise Brownell of the trip and the first few days in Venice, which she called “this strangest of strange places,” and that they’d arrived Saturday (estimated here as May 14).
May 15 Sunday – In Venice, the Clemens family moved from the Hotel Brittania to the Hotel Danieli [NB 31 TS 43].
The Chicago Tribune printed an interview with “colorless” Orion Clemens. Budd calls this “an oblique sign” of Sam’s “eminence” [Our MT 121].
May 14 Saturday – Based on a two-week stay in Florence, the Clemens family by now would have traveled on to Venice, Italy where letters from May 17 to May 25 exist. Also, a letter from Susy to Louise Brownell, not postmarked until May 29, by which time the family had continued on, reveals the family had been in Florence “since Saturday,” which has to be this day. Sam’s unpublished notebook clears up the mystery:
May 13 Friday – Putnam Phalanx sent Sam a printed circular and form to enlist in their June 17 observance together with the Amoskeag Veterans of N.H. and the Worcester Continentals of Mass in a joint observance in Worcester [MTP].
May 12 Thursday – Sam’s notebooks in Florence (he used two this day):
May 12 ’92 — 10 a.m. Several companies of soldiers came marching along & passed with its spirited music on down the Lung’arno, & this most strange fact was again observable: that not a boy, not a youth, not anybody trotted at the head or tail of the procession, & nobody on the sidewalk stopped to look. How different from Berlin or any other city in the world! What is the explanation of it? [NB 32 TS 10].