Clemens Family Relocates to Europe: Day By Day

June 5 Monday – Dr. William Baldwin was to come and examine Livy [June 4 to Baldwin].

June 5 Tuesday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam that they’d been unable to secure a copy of Lownsbury’s Life of James Fenimore Cooper, but they would send for one “from the other side without delay” and hoped he would call on them when in London [MTP].

June 6 Saturday – At 5 a.m. the Clemenses sailed from New York for France on the Gascoigne [June 3 to Moffett]. The family would not return for more than eight years and would never again live in Hartford. Powers writes that Webster & Co. owed Sam $74,087.35 for his cumulative investments in the company at the time the family left [MT A Life 543].

Check # Payee Amount [Notes]

June 6 Monday – Sam’s notebook from Frankfurt, Germany:

Frankfurt a.m. June 6. / At Schwan hotel 2 days [NB 31 TS 50]. Note: Sam also listed tips he gave to the room-waiter, Portier, Chambermaid, “Boots (each)”, Elevator boy of 2 marks each except 1 mark for the elevator boy, and that “(Couldn’t find restaurant waiter.) / Everybody perfectly satisfied”.

The Clemenses left Frankfurt; Sam listed concerns in his notebook:

June 6 Wednesday – John J. Read wrote from Paris thanking Sam for being able to look at life through the eyes of Mark Twain. “What a pity it is that you cannot teach Professor Fiske to play. It requires genius, however, to play well, and the knowledge of Sanskrit or any other outlandish tongue is worse than useless” [MTP].

June 7 Sunday – At sea, Sam’s notebook entry:

7th. Glassy sea — no wind — everybody on deck — overcoats not needed….Delicious breakfasts, 12.30. Lie abed till 10.30: they bring you a cup of coffee & a biscuit about 8.30 if you want it — & you do [3: 639].

Mrs. Helen Bancroft, “daughter of an old steamboat pilot” wrote from New Orleans to Sam, enclosing a MS and asking Sam to comment as to its fitness for publication [MTP].

June 8 Monday – Clara Clemens’ seventeenth birthday.

At sea, Sam’s notebook entry:

Certainly the sunniest & most beautiful day the Atlantic ever saw. But little sea — though what there is would be seriously felt on a smaller vessel. This one has no motion.

The phosphorescent waves at night are very intense on the black surface….Open fire place & big mantelepiece in great salon — imitation, not real; but a cosy & perfect counterfeit.

June 8 Wednesday – Clara Clemens’ eighteenth birthday.

June 8 Thursday – Clara Clemens’ nineteenth birthday.

At the Villa Viviani, Florence, Sam wrote to Joe Twichell. He did not mention Clara’s birthday.

The sea voyage set me up & I reached here May 27 in tolerable condition — nothing left but weakness, cough all gone. I was ill in bed eleven days in Chicago, a week in Elmira & 3 months in New York (seemingly) & accomplished nothing that I went home to do.

June 8 Friday – Clara Clemens’ 20th birthday.

June 9 Tuesday – At sea, Sam’s notebook entry:

June 9. Brilliant sun, but good deal of sea. Breakfast table rather deserted. It is a good, easy-riding sea-boat. … Blow whistle for noon — can’t hear the bell far…. Seen the whole length of the gangway, people at dinner are diminished to children

A sour deck steward who makes all calls upon him a reluctant & uncomfortable thing [3: 642].

June 9 Friday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam indicating that General Stewart L. Woodford (1835-1913), politician and former congressman, was interested in buying $40,000 worth of Sam’s Paige typesetter royalties [MTLTP 347n1]. Note: See June 16, for Woodford’s change of heart. In 1897 Woodford would be appointed minister to Spain less than a year before the Spanish-American war.

March 1 Tuesday – Sam and Livy were in transit to Menton, France.

March 1 Wednesday – On or about this day Clara Clemens played the lead role in a play at Mrs. Willard’s school for girls in Berlin [Mar. 4 Eagle article — see entry].

March 1-20 Monday – Sometime during this period Sam sent one of his early aphorisms to Constance Lloyd Wilde (Mrs. Oscar Wilde 1858-1898):

March 1 Thursday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy at the Hotel Brighton in Paris, France.

A man said to-day “Puddnhead Wilson is making a big stir. They say, all around, that it’s away up — the best work you’ve ever done except the Prince & Pauper. Don’t you think so yourself?”

March 10 Friday – Frederick J. Hall answered Sam’s Jan. 24 letter with a four-page, single-spaced typed response, which, among other things, asked about selling PW as a subscription book, published through American Publishing Co.

March 10 Saturday – While en route Sam “made scores of notations on the pages” of Sarah Grand’s (Frances Elizabeth MacFall’s) novel, The Heavenly Twins. Gribben: “Much of his marginalia is quoted in A1911.

March 11 Friday – Barrow, Wade, Guthrie & Co. Accountants sent Sam an annual statement of their audit of Webster & Co.’s books, “showing the result of the two departments to be a net profit of $16,743.28 of which the Captial Account of Mr. S.L. Clemens has been credited with two-thirds thereof viz: $11,162.19, and the Special Account of Mr. F. J. Hall with one-third viz: $5,581.09” [MTP].

March 11 Saturday – Sam’s notebook in Florence was a list of things to do/get:

March 11. / Fund-butter. / Shaving things. / Writing paper & envelops. / Tobacco & cigars. / Ship-cap. / MSS. / Cash. / Furnish cable-address. / Get Joan Arc trial in Hartford. / flask [NB 33 TS 2].

March 11 Sunday – At sea on the SS New York, Sam wrote to William H. Rideing on the editorial staff of Youth’s Companion and North American Review.

March 11 Monday – At H.H. Rogers’ home, 26 E. 57th in New York, Sam wrote to Livy:

Livy darling, I have been here 9 days [arrived Mar. 2], & have received but one letter from you. It came with the address corrected at the Postoffice, & so I gave myself no further uneasiness; but I must make some inquiries, for two letters are due from other folk beside those which you have doubtless written.

March 12 Saturday – The Illustrated London News ran a third and last segment of “An Austrian Health-Factory.” Other segments ran on Feb. 20 and Mar. 5, 1892 [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].

Back in Hartford “The Twentieth Century Club” was formed with Charles Hopkins Clark, editor of the Hartford Courant, as president. The “call” went out to 45 “gentlemen residents” of Hartford [http://1892club.org/history-page.htm].

March 12 Sunday – In Florence Sam wrote to daughter Clara. Summer had arrived, “The sun is gratefully hot.” The Hillyers had left Florence, and “Uncle Larry” (Laurence Hutton), would soon arrive, though after Sam sailed on Mar. 22. Many other guests came through Florence:

“Yas” [William Walter Phelps] is coming, too. He arrived in Rome a few days ago, I judge. He will spend a week there with the Binghams, then come to Florence; so I shall see him before I go.

March 12 Monday – Sam was at sea on the SS New York.

March 13 Sunday – Sam’s Europe letter, “The Cradle of Liberty” was reprinted in the New York Sun and perhaps other McClure syndicated newspapers [Willson’s list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].