July – In the July-December issue of Library and Studio Part I of “Life of Mark Twain” was published. (Part II would run in the Jan. to June, 1892 issue.) Will M. Clemens’ report is in The Twainian for Nov. 1940, Tenney citing, p.19. The Twainian bears only the citation of this article with no synopsis.
A copy of Walter Scott’s The Abbot (1860 ed.) inscribed: Jean Clemens Aix les Bains July,. 1891 [Gribben 614].
June 30 Tuesday – Mrs. B.H. Campbell wrote from Wichita, Kansas to Sam passing on a “good story about yourself” she came across in “one of your local papers” [MTP].
June 29 Monday – In Aix-les-Bains, France Sam wrote again to Susy and Clara Clemens in Geneva. The girls had written.
Dear Sweethearts:
Mamma is a great deal more comfortable this p.m. & I am pretty well satisfied with the way the doctor has got the best of the disease. (Ouch!) Notice to stop using my right hand. Your letters are well done & delightful [MTP]. Note: Livy’s heart condition would not have been helped by the baths, though rest from travel may have helped.
June 28 Sunday – Of this period Paine writes, “The Clemens party went to Geneva, then rested for a time at the baths of Aix” [MTB 921]. Kaplan writes, “Clemens and Livy…looking for relief for the rheumatism that now crippled both of them, visited the fashionable watering places, Aix-les-Bains and then Marienbad.” No letters from Sam are extant until June 28. Powers writes, “…they sank into the pungent sulfuric baths every day for five weeks” [MT A Life 539].
June 27 Saturday – On or about this day, the Clemens party without Susy and Clara continued on to Aix-les-Bains, France, across the Swiss border and a bath since Roman days, where Sam wrote Susy and Clara on June 28. Baedecker’s 1887 travel guide lists the distance as 55&1/2 miles, a 3&1/2 hour trip by train.
June 26 Friday – The Clemens party was in Annecy trying the baths there. Rodney writes that the Clemens party went to Annecy, “not far over the French border” and stayed a week at a spa there, “convinced that the baths were not restorative” [134]. Note: the chronology for this week based on Rodney.
June 25 Thursday – The Clemens party was in Annecy trying the baths there.
June 24 Wednesday – The Clemens party was in Annecy trying the baths there.
John Cowden wrote a very long (and rather dry, rambling, hard to read) letter from Pittsfield, Ill. to Sam about the history of the Mississippi area and experiences there [MTP].
June 23 Tuesday – The Clemens party was in Annecy trying the baths there.
June 22 Monday – The Clemens party was in Annecy trying the baths there.