Riverdale – Lying to the Invalid – Jean to Old Point, Va. – Plasmon Concealments Writing Christian Science Articles – Queen of Frauds – Ordered to Italy “Sell that God damned House!”– Bronchitis Blues – Tarrytown Leased – Collier Offers Godalmighty Bissell Buys Hartford House – Measles! For Clara – Fairhaven Trip Long-Distance House-hunting – Major Pond Dies – Escape to Quarry Farm “A Dog’s Tale”– Yacht Races a Diversion – New Harper Contracts – Sailing For Italy Florence Villa di Quarto – Landlady from Hell – Livy’s Set-back

January – The North American Review included the second installment of Mark Twain’s series, “Christian Science II” (p.1-9) written in 1897-8 in Vienna. The installments ran monthly From Dec. 1902 through the Apr. 1903 issue. A book would result from these articles, though Harpers would delay it till 1907.

February – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied with one line to Frederick A. Duneka: “This is a most dam good Conclusion—put it in, Duneka / SLC” [MTP].

Prof. William Milligan Sloane wrote from NYC to Sam. “I want you here on March 5th at one o’clock to lunch with Sidney Lee and I want you very badly. Do come, there will be some of your best friends.” Hearing “conflicting accounts” of Livy, Prof. Sloane hoped she was no worse but much better [MTP].

March and after – Alice Jane Chandler Webster (“Jean”) (1876-1916), daughter of the late Charles Luther Webster, and Sam’s great-niece, wrote When Patty Went to College, which was published in Mar. 1903 (see Gribben p. 753). Sam referred to this book in one of the notes slipped into Livy’s sickroom which dates it somewhat. Here is the note:

There, now, my darling, Clara was here a while ago & says I be’aved ’an’some & was a cherub. Praise from Sir Hubert! [ a popular expression]

April – Mark Twain’s humorous article “Instructions in Art” first ran in

Metropolitan Magazine this month and in May, 1903. In part, with some of his drawings (inserts).

April, late or May early – Sam wrote a short essay, “Reflections on a Letter and a Book,” so titled later by Paine. The piece was a response to a letter and book sent him by Hilary Trent (aka R.M. Manley). Sam was often irritated by such requests to read literary works, and took this instance to wax ridicule on the selfishness of the human race [AMT 1: 181, 520n181.3].

May 16 Saturday – Sam went to Fairhaven, Mass. to visit H.H. Rogers, who was recovering from an appendectomy. The men played billiards, went on a ride, then after dinner Rogers took to his bed; Sam and William E. Benjamin (Rogers’ son-in-law) played more billiards till 11:30 p.m. [May 17 to Livy].

June 1, before – Sam wrote to Daniel Willard Fiske, asking help in finding a furnished villa near Florence, Italy. He divulged that he was also writing Mrs. Ross , (Janet D. Ross ) and that daughter Clara was also writing Miss Hall and Miss Blood to keep an eye out for a place “during the next 5 or 6 months.” Livy added a PS in the top margin: “Do you know of any very good physicians in Florence?”

June 3 Wednesday – Sam went to Hartford, planning to arrive there just after noon. He stayed at the Whitmore home [June 1 to Whitmore].

Thomas F. Gatts wrote to Sam.

Your esteemed favor of May 30th, received this morning. I assure you that we give due consideration to every word and sentence of your letter.

June 12 Friday – Sam was in Fairhaven, Mass. to confer with Rogers about business matters relating to Collier’s offers and arranging agreements between Collier’s, Harpers, and the American Publishing Co. Rogers had been recuperating from an appendectomy. Until this date, Livy had not been well enough to allow Sam to leave Riverdale. On June 15 Lyon wrote that Sam “came back this morning from a little visit with Mr.

July – In Elmira, N.Y. sometime during the month, Sam wrote to Annie A. Fields.

Alas, and alas, we are packed for Italy, and all valued letters are packed and stored with the silver and hymn-books. There were not many, of course, we being near neighbors, and communicating mainly by mouth. I wish I would send you Warner’s Invocation on St. Valentine’s morning, beginning:

“Come out into the slush, dear,

In your gracious galoshes shod,”

July 1 Wednesday – At 8:30 a.m. Sam, Livy, and her trained nurse, Miss Margaret Sherry, left the Riverdale house and went down the hill to get on a launch. From the launch to Rogers’ yacht Kanawha, then down river to the Lackawanna R.R. dock at Hoboken, the group made the 10 a.m. train for the long ride to Quarry Farm in Elmira. They arrived at 4:40 p.m. Clara and Jean were to follow them the first week in August.

August – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam inscribed his photograph with an aphorism to an unidentified person: “It is never too late to mend. There is no hurry. / Truly Your friend / Mark Twain ‘ New York, August 1908” [MTP].

August or September – In N.Y.C. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Elmira.

Dear Ben, I expect to beat this letter home, but I don’t know yet.

September – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam gave daughter five bird and animial-related books.

He inscribed Olive Thorne Miller’s True Bird Stories from my Note-Books: “To / Jean Clemens / with her Father’s love / Sept. 1903. / It is never too late to mend. There’s plenty of time. / M.T.” [Christie’s Auction, June 24, 2009, Sale 2272. lot 16].

Sam also gave Jean the following each inscribed slightly different:

October – Catani Ugo’s portrait of Mark Twain was published in International Studio, p. 291. No additional text was provided [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p. 172].

October 24 Saturday – The Clemens family and hired help sailed for Genoa, Italy in the Princess Irene

November –This issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal contained Thomas E. Marr’s “Three Famous Authors Outdoors, p. 36-7, with four of the photographs Marr took of Sam Clemens with a porcelain cat, and John T. Lewis at Quarry Farm.

November 6 Friday – The Clemens family arrived in Genoa, Italy. The last leg of their journey was to be by train to Florence, Italy, some six or seven hours. The New York Times ran a squib on Nov. 9, p. 7 which revealed that George Gregory Smith met the family in Genoa and accompanied them on to Florence, so likely he had arranged the rail travel, some 480 miles. This would make the family’s arrival in Florence at about 8 or 9 p.m.

December – Sam’s story, “A Dog’s Tale” first ran in Harper’s Monthly this issue. Budd: “Shortly afterward it was published as a pamphlet…by the National Anti-Vivisection Society in London, dated 1903, although it was apparently not distributed until 1904. The story was published in a separate edition in September 1904 as A Dog’s Tale…and was included in the collection The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906)”  [Collected 2: 1008].

Sour Weather in Florence – Roosevelt: “What he wants, he takes”– Butters a Fraud Mollie Clemens Dies – Dictating Autobio. – Pigs & Enunciator Wars – Donkey Attack Clara Hysterics – Livy, a Shadow – Charity Reading – Gelli’s Portrait

January to May, 1904 — Daniel Willard Fiske wrote a note on a brown scrap of paper:  Since 2 this a.m. I am enjoying a stalwart assault of gout.  Mrs. Schaeffer, sister of Eugene Schuyler, his biographer and the editor of his writings, with her interesting daughter, is at the Villino Montebello. I don’t [know] whether you know her or not. Kindest regards and best wishes to Mrs. Clemens & the house hold [MTP]

February – Fernando Fini wrote to Sam, sometime between Feb. and Apr. 1904. The letter is three pages of Italian [MTP].

G. Herbert Thring for Society of Authors, London sent Sam a printed announcement for their dinner at the Hotel Cecil on Apr. 20 [MTP].

March – Metropolitan Magazine ran “An Interview with Mark Twain” by Clara Morris, the actress [Tenney 39: The Twainian (Feb. 1943)]. “Recollections of ain interview, apparently years earlier, in Wallack’s Theatre; the conversation with ‘Mr. Twain’ is reconstructed vaguely and imperfectly from memory. Illustrated with a drawing of MT by Edmund Frederick. (NYPL)” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 189]. See Insert.

April – A text of Sam’s autobiographical dictation survives made from Isabel Lyon’s notes during this month, that Paine later titled, “Henry H. Rogers,” and joined with a later manuscript (MTA 1: 250-56) [AMT

May – Bookman (NY), p. 235-6, ran Harry Thurston Peck’s article, “Mark Twain at Ebb Tide.” Tenney: “A review of Extracts from Adam’s Diary as showing ‘just how far a man who was once a great humorist can fall. We thought when we read A Double-Barrelled Detective Story that Mark Twain could do no worse. But we were wrong’” [40].

Harper’s Weekly ran an interview with Mark Twain by J. M’Arthur [Tenney 39: Henderson (1911) p. 223].