Day By Day Dates

April 25 Friday – Sam wrote from the Hotel Normandy in Paris to Andrew Chatto.

April 30 Wednesday – From Lucius Fairchild’s diary:

“Genl Noyes dinner.  Accepted. Sarah & us. Ministers Stoughton & Maynard, Job Stevenson, Mark Twain present” [Rees 8]

May 3 Saturday – One of the greatest attractions of the 1878 Paris Exposition was Henry Giffard’s captive balloon in the Tuileries of Paris. Lucius Fairchild invited the Clemens family to go up in the balloon. Sam wrote and declined due to a previous engagement.  

May 4 Sunday – Sam and Livy enjoyed a breakfast invitation at 12:30 with unknown party or parties [MTLE 4: 53].

May 5 Monday – Valentine Besarel sent a receipt to Sam for 2,246 Lire [MTP].

May 6 Tuesday – Joe Twichell wrote to Clemens “on this sweetest May morning…I greet you. I have no news to tell, but you are in my thoughts.” Joe warned against being fooled by rum and repeated that he was to teach at Cornell next week [MTP]. Note: clipping enclosed from the Hartford Times ca. late April, 1879, “Julia Smith’s Wedding Reception.” Twichell attached a sheet above the article and wrote, “Read this—the whole of it. It is full of dainty bits.

May 7 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook:

“I wish this eternal winter would come to an end. Snow flakes fell to-day, & also about a week ago. Have had rain almost without intermission for 2 months & one week. Have had a fire every day since Sept. 10, & have now just lighted one” [MTNJ 2: 308].

May 8 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

“Called on Tourgènieff [Turgenev] with Boyesen & had cup of tea out of his Samovar” [MTNJ 2: 308].

May 10 Saturday – Sam wrote from the Normandy Hotel in Paris to Frank Bliss.

May 11 Sunday – The New York World published Sam’s “interview” with Richard Whiteing, (1840-1928), English author and correspondent for the World. Sam discussed copyright laws and British society [MTNJ 2: 307n31;Scharnhorst, Interviews 14-16] (see Apr. 12 entry).

May 12 Monday – Sam wrote from Paris to Robert M. Hooper:

…previous engagement debars us the pleasure of accepting Mr. & Mrs. Heuston’s kind invitation, but we shall hold the 17th open, so as not to miss the entertainment at your house.

I’m as sorry as you are that you were not on the Tribune, because toward the last I began to get my hand in, & if you had been there I would have won all of your money & part of your clothes [MTLE 4: 57].

May 13 Tuesday – Livy wrote from Paris to her mother:

“We live in such a perfect whirl of people these days, that it seems utterly impossible to do anything, I wish that I had put down the names of the people that have been here for the last two months, but I think every day, well this will be the last we shant have as many again” [MTNJ 2: 288].

May 14 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Paris to his nephew, Samuel Moffett, confiding that he and Livy were “fleeing from these deluges of company” by using the work room (studio) Sam rented from Millet [MTLE 4: 58].

May 15 Thursday – In Paris, Sam answered Mary Mason Fairbanks’ letter requesting a loan of $2,000. Sam sent her $1,000 and referred her to Charles Langdon for the rest. Sam confessed that having Mary’s son Charley send pictures directly to the American Publishing Co was a mistake. “It never occurred to me to remark that they should be sent here—to me, drawn on paper, not on the wood” [MTLE 4: 59].

May 17 Saturday – From Lucius Fairchild’s diary: “At home—Called on Mark Twain & walked on the Boulevard” [Rees 8].

Sam wrote from Paris to Richard Whiteing. He thanked him for writing something complimentary about him and for “saving me from those people—I had been feeling a little uneasy about them” (unidentified) [MTLE 4: 59].

May 20-25 Sunday – Sam wrote (for publication) to the editor of the New York Evening Post. His letter was printed on June 9 as “Mark Twain, a Presidential Candidate” [MTLE 4: 62]. (See June 9 entry for excerpt, and also in Budd, “Collected”.)

May 23 Friday – Bill and receipt from Munroe & Co., Paris, for stay at the Normandy Hotel, £12.4.1 London [MTP].

Christian Tauchnitz wrote to Sam: “Many thanks for your kind lines. I will certainly write to Mr. Aldrich. / The books of Mr. Howells did not yet reach me, I therefore directed a line to him” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Answered”; file note: “See SLC to Tauchnitz 25 may 1879, SLC to Aldrich, 25 May 1879”

May 25 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Normandy Hotel in Paris to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had left Paris for home a few days before. The Clemens family “felt an awful vacancy here when the Aldriches left,” Sam wrote. He also passed on Tauchnitz’s promise to write Aldrich about including Aldrich’s book of sketches in his series.

May 28 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook: “This is one of the coldest days of this most damnable & interminable winter” [MTNJ 2: 311].

May 29 Thursday – Sam wrote from the Normandy Hotel in Paris to Andrew Chatto, asking him to send a copy of Roughing It to Ivan Turgenev [MTLE 4: 66].

May 30 Friday – From Lucius Fairchild’s diary: “Dinner at Home…Mark Twain,…Mrs. Clemens, Miss Spaulding, Mrs. Dean, Miss Stevens –& ourselves” [Rees 8].

June – From Sam’s notebook:

“Presbyterian Young clergyman who sat among catholic worshippers & examined Baedecker’s map—said he forgot himself. These acts of brutality make religion pleasant and give people confidence in it, because they see how it builds up the humanities in the devotee” [MTNJ 2: 314].

From Livy’s pen we learn that Miss Mary Dunham of Hartford…

June 1 Sunday – From Sam’s notebook:

Still this vindictive winter continues. Had a raw, cold rain to-day; to-night we sit around a rousing wood fire [MTNJ 2: 312].

June 5 Thursday – Sam wrote a short note from Paris to the J. Langdon Co., advising them of his drawing £200 on a letter of credit that day.

“March—April—May—3 months & $4,000 gone, in Paris—but we have had considerable to eat for it, & a basket or so of wood to burn” [MTLE 4: 70].

Bill and receipt from Munroe & Co, Paris for Normandy Hotel [MTP].

June 8 Sunday – Clara Clemens’ fifth birthday.

From Sam’s notebook:

“We went with Clara & Gen. Fairchild to the Grand Prix & saw Nubienne win the $20,000 given half by City Govt & ½ by RR’s –12 horses in that race” [MTNJ 2: 315].