Clemens Family Relocates to Europe: Day By Day

March 20 Tuesday – In New York H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam that “everything seems to be going smoothly in Chicago,” and that on the Webster & Co., situation he was “sure that we settled upon the wise and proper course.” He’d received Sam’s cable (not extant) and was waiting for Sam’s letter regarding the Uniform Edition possibilities with William Evarts Benjamin and Frank Bliss. Henry Irving’s stock had been delivered. Rogers two daughters, Mrs.

March 20 Wednesday – From the Clemens home on Farmington Ave. in Hartford, Sam began a letter to Livy in Paris, which he finished on Mar. 21. He headed the letter “At Home, Hartford, Mch.20/95.”

Livy darling, when I arrived in town I did not want to go near the house, & I didn’t want to go anywhere or see anybody. I said to myself, “If I may be spared it I will never live in Hartford again.”

March 21 Monday – In Menton, France Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela Moffett, whose letter (not extant) had found him.

Your letter has come, & finds me with a cold in the head which makes me want to swear, & rheumatic threatenings which make me afraid to. These are the first rheumatic suggestions which I have had since last Christmas (to amount to much), & I reckon they are due to your Christian Science. …

March 21 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook on his departure from Florence:

Mch. 21. Drove to station with Livy, Susy & Jean. / Wm Walter Phelps arrived presently. He & I went to Genoa by the 11.35 train, arriving at 6.25 [NB 33 TS 4].

Sam and Phelps traveled 166 miles to Genoa, where Sam spent the night in a hotel [Mar 22 to Jean Clemens].

March 21 Thursday – In Hartford at Joe Twichell’s, Sam finished his Mar. 20 to Livy:

March 21. (Uncle Joe’s.)

I was to dine there at 6.30, — & did. It was their first day, & their first meal. I was there first, & received them. Then John sent in the roses & your card, which touched Mrs. Alice [Day] to the depths. Good-bye dear sweetheart, good-bye. / Saml [LLMT 312].

March 22 Tuesday – In Menton, France Sam wrote to daughter Clara at the Royal Hotel in Berlin, passing on instructions from Livy as to packing their trunks. His letter is obviously a response to Clara’s letter (not extant). Sam mentions “Yaas” always wearing a beard — Susy’s nickname (Paine calls “rather disrespectful”) for Minister William Phelps. Paine writes, “a term conferred because of his pronounciation of that affirmative” [MTB 934].

March 22 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Sailed in the Kaiser Wilhelm II at 11 a.m.” [NB 33 TS 4].

After boarding and departure, Sam began a letter to daughter Jean on the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II that he finished on Mar. 23:

March 22 Thursday – At the Hotel Brighton in Paris Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I’ve had a tough time persuading Mrs. Clemens to stay here and allow me to go back. She consents to let me go; but it is on condition that I remain in America only 3 weeks and take ship for France again May 7. She wants to go home with me, but the physician will not hear of it — says she would lose all she has gained — and she is gaining pretty satisfactorily. Susy is a deal better, and has acquired a valuable appetite.

March 22 Friday – Sam returned to New York and the Rogers’ home at 26 E. 57th, where he wrote a short note to Laurence Hutton.

O, I am unspeakably sorry that I am to miss seeing that dear & marvelous child. I have just returned, after an absence of many days, & am leaving again to-day to be absent till Monday. Give her my love; & the like to Mrs. Hutton [MTP].

March 23 Thursday – Sam finished his Mar. 22 letter to daughter Jean:

In this ship they call you to meals with a bugle. When it is wandering about the far distance of the vessel it sounds quaint & sweet —

“O sweet & far from cliff & scar,

The horns of elfland faintly blowing.”

March 23 Saturday – In New York, Sam wrote a letter to John Elderkin, secretary of the Lotos Club. The letter was printed in the N.Y. Tribune for Apr. 25, 1895, p.11, along with a notice that “Mark Twain has been elected a life member of the Lotos Club.”

March 24 Thursday – Sam and Livy left Menton for Pisa, Italy with Joseph Verey, their courier. The plan was for Verey to leave them at Pisa and return to Berlin to guide the rest of the party to Rome. The entire trip from Menton to Rome was about 400 miles. Sam and Livy may have stayed in Pisa a day, but arrived in Rome on Mar. 27 [Mar. 27 to Chatto].

Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam

March 24 Friday – En route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York, Sam wrote to daughter Susy, relating an anecdote told by the nephew of Longfellow about Professor Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard and his introduction of his lifelong friend, William Hunt.

March 24 Saturday – Sam received the document (which transferred Sam’s Paige royalties to Livy) from Bainbridge Colby, H.H. Rogers’ attorney, with the law firm of Stern & Rushmore, but too late to go to the consulate to sign it and get it notarized [Mar. 26 to Rogers].

March 24 Sunday – In New York, fourteen year old Helen Keller (1880-1968), the first deafblind person who would graduate from college, met Sam and William Dean Howells at Laurence Hutton’s. (Sam’s Nov. 26, 1896 to Emilie Rogers mentions that H.H. Rogers was also present.) Keller wrote to her friend, Mary Mapes Dodge on Mar. 29 (using a new script typewriter, a “Remington”) of the meeting on the previous Sunday (Mar.

March 25 Friday – Sam and Livy were in Pisa, Italy. Sam’s notebook lists the Eden Hotel:

March 25 Saturday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. The ship likely was at Gibraltar by this time.

March 25 Monday – Sam traveled to Philadelphia, where he gave a luncheon speech at Cramp’s Shipyard for a dedication ceremony of a new liner. Fatout’s intro to the speech, p.274, MT Speaking:

March 26 Saturday – Sam and Livy were in transit from Pisa to Rome, Italy.

March 26 Sunday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook on board: Sunny & beautiful. No sea. [NB 33 TS 4].

Meanwhile, in Florence, Livy wrote to Sam:

Youth my darling: How I should like to be out at sea with you today. It is here absolute perfection, a little cooler than yesterday which was about like July.

March 26 Monday – At the Hotel Brighton in Paris Sam wrote to Mary Hallock Foote, giving her an unqualified recommendation as a drawing teacher, even though he could not testify to her ability in that matter, he could testify that she “speak the truth, every time,” so that, “whatever you SAY you are competent to do,” he was sure she could do [MTP: Hartford Courant Aug. 14, 1968].

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers:

March 26 Tuesday – An unidentified person wrote to Sam (envelope only, Keller to Dodge Mar. 29 encl.) [MTP]. Note: this is the letter of Helen Keller’s quoted in Mar. 24 entry, so the sender may have been its recipient, Mary Mapes Dodge.

March 27 Sunday – In Rome Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus.

We have just arrived here & shall remain two or three weeks. …

I received the two copies of the magazine in Berlin & got lots of entertainment out of them. I ought to have thanked you long ago, but I was attending to the influenza & couldn’t.

March 27 Monday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook:

Monday, 27. Up at 2.30 a.m. Passed AZORES 3.30 P.M. / D.O. Wills / Navy Cut / Bristol & London (in yeast. powder cans) [NB 33 TS 4].

Susy Clemens’ letter of late March to Louise Brownell relates her breaking Florence tradition:

March 27 Tuesday – The Brooklyn Eagle carried an article, p.8 with a London byline, that included a paragraph on Mark Twain in Paris:

The correspondent at Paris of the Daily Notes notes the scarcity of American visitors in that city during Eastertide. The correspondent adds that Mr. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) is daily seen on the Avenue des Champs-Elysses. Mr. Clemens says that he has several books on hand. Mr. and Mrs. Poultney Bigelow are also in Paris en route from Algeria to London.