July 10 Friday – In Aix-les-Bains Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. Sam added vertically to the top margin of the letter that he would “be present at eight or ten Wagner operas at” Bayreuth, Germany from July 31 to Aug. 12. Sam wanted Hall to see Robert Underwood Johnson or Richard Watson Gilder of Century Magazine to see if they’d pay $1,000 as Samuel S.
July 9 Thursday – W.F. Johnson wrote to Sam soliciting aid for the Brooklyn Howard Colored Orphan Asylum [MTP].
July 8 Wednesday – In Aix-les-Bains Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, requesting Kipling’s last book, Mine Own People [MTP from Am. Art Assoc. catalog, item 353].
Augustus Jacobson for the Society of Tennessee Army, Palmer House, Chicago wrote to Sam inviting him to the unveiling of the Grant statue in Lincoln Park during the reunion Oct. 7 and 8 [MTP].
July 4 Saturday – Joe Twichell sent a printed circular he’d received from E.B. Dillingham, Chaplain at the Hartford County Jail seeking “suitable books” or funds. Joe wrote on the bottom, “Here’s a gem ‘of purest [illegible word] serene — as you see. I send it to you for a Forth of July present. With love and greeting to all, Yer aff. – Joe.” On the envelope Sam wrote, “Use this in newspaper letter” [MTP].
July 3 Friday – In Aix-les-Bains Sam wrote again to daughters Susy and Clara in Geneva, with Jean Clemens penning the letter (due to Sam’s rheumatism) and adding a PS asking for them to soak off and save the French stamps for her that came on their letters. Sam wrote of a conversation he’d had with the doctor on Wednesday (July 1) about a rash that everyone had but Sam himself.
July 1 Wednesday – In Aix-les-Bains, Sam had a conversation with the doctor about the rash that was tormenting nearly everyone but Sam. See July 3 entry.
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].