May 12 Sunday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York. Sam’s notebook on board:
Sunday morning. Six or eight people who came over with me in the Paris the other day. Three or four of them went up to London with our multi-millionaire to be shown his glories. It was a month ago; but to this day these men can think of nothing else, talk of nothing else. They are as happy & stunned & blessed as if they had been to heaven & dined with God [NB 34 TS 9].
May 13 Friday – Putnam Phalanx sent Sam a printed circular and form to enlist in their June 17 observance together with the Amoskeag Veterans of N.H. and the Worcester Continentals of Mass in a joint observance in Worcester [MTP].
May 13 Saturday – At 10 a.m. the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II sailed for Genoa, Italy with Sam on board. Sam’s notebook:
May 13, Saturday. Room 268 Kaiser Wilhelm II. Cast off at 10.15 a.m., discharged pilot at 12.30. Only half a trip of passengers [NB 33 TS 12].
May 13 Sunday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces.
May 13 Monday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.
May 14 Saturday – Based on a two-week stay in Florence, the Clemens family by now would have traveled on to Venice, Italy where letters from May 17 to May 25 exist. Also, a letter from Susy to Louise Brownell, not postmarked until May 29, by which time the family had continued on, reveals the family had been in Florence “since Saturday,” which has to be this day. Sam’s unpublished notebook clears up the mystery:
May 14 Sunday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Based on an account of the voyage by H. W. Mead to the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, June 25, 1893 p.6, “Brooklyn People in Lucerne,” there was seasickness the first two days out. Note: no documentation has been found for Sam ever being seasick.
May 14 Monday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces. A large meteor shower was visible in France.
May 14 Tuesday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.
May 15 Sunday – In Venice, the Clemens family moved from the Hotel Brittania to the Hotel Danieli [NB 31 TS 43].
The Chicago Tribune printed an interview with “colorless” Orion Clemens. Budd calls this “an oblique sign” of Sam’s “eminence” [Our MT 121].
May 15 Monday – The New York Times, p.5 ran an article about a new society, formed in April. Sam was named among the members. The object of the group was “to bring together, socially, the large number of men who have been identified with the development of the West”:
SOCIETY OF WESTERN MEN.
— — — —
It Promises to Flourish and Be Hospitable in This City.
May 15 Tuesday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces.
May 15 Wednesday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.
Livy wrote to H.H. Rogers: “Please honor Mr. Clemens’s drafts upon such funds of mine as are in your hands, & greatly oblige” [MTP].
May 16 Monday – Sam’s notebook in Venice:
Monday, May 16, took Antonio the gondolier at 7 francs a day.
Smoking party Monday 8.30 to 12 p.m. at Horatio Brown’s, 559 Zattere (Ca. Torresella) [NB 31 TS 46].
† – Susy Clemens wrote to Louise Brownell of the trip and the first few days in Venice, which she called “this strangest of strange places,” and that they’d arrived Saturday (estimated here as May 14).
May 16 Tuesday – 1,200 miles at sea, en route from New York to Genoa, Italy on the Kaiser Wilhelm II, Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull, delighted at her book (probably White Birches, just published):
It is a compact, orderly, symmetrical work, it lifts the reader to the dignity of its own high plane & keeps him there, & is singularly free from laziness, unconsequentialities, & irrelevant excursions. Yes, it is compact, compact [MTP].
May 16 Wednesday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris. He wrote to Livy.
Livy darling, I shall reach London this evening, no doubt; & then I shall seem very close to you & those others. It makes me joyful; & pretty impatient, too. The voyage makes a long, long interval, & conspicuously blank one, on account of the absence of letters from you. …
May 16 Thursday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.
May 17 Tuesday – In Venice, Italy Sam wrote to Augustin Daly, enclosing a play he’d had read to him in Rome, written by Julian Corbett. It sounded good to Sam but he admitted knowing nothing about how it would play. If Daly liked it he might write to Corbett at the village of Thames Ditton, Surrey, England. Otherwise, Frederick J. Hall would ship it back to Corbett [MTP].
May 17 Wednesday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II.
May 17 Thursday – In London Mark Twain gave the speech of the evening at a dinner by Poultney Bigelow for the officers of the US cruiser Chicago. The N.Y. Times, p.5 “Her Troops” reported the dinner and Sam’s speech but did not report its content.
Dr. Halstead Boyland wrote to Sam, inviting him and Livy for dinner on May 26 [MTP].
May 17 Friday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York. After a concert aboard ship, Sam gave two readings for the usual Seaman’s Fund charity. The Brooklyn Eagle, May 18, 1895, p.2. “MARK TWAIN GAVE READINGS” reported:
At the Concert on the American Line Steamer New York.
May 18 Wednesday – Angelo Heilprin for Academy of Natural Sciences wrote from Phila. to Sam soliciting funds for the relief of Lt. Peary, “wintering in the Arctic north” [MTP]. Note: Robert E. Peary would claim to be the first to reach the North Pole in 1909.
May 18 Thursday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Sam’s notebook:
May 18 Friday – Sam spent two days in London. Mary Anderson’s agent offered him £2,000 to lecture ten nights in London, but he declined because the season was over in three weeks and there’d be no time to advertise. He promised to consider a fall or winter engagement including a few two-night stands in other cities. He tried to locate Rogers’ daughters at the Brown Hotel, Mrs. Cara Rogers Duff and May Rogers, in order to deliver a letter sent them by Mrs.
May – The sixth of seven parts from PW ran in the January issue of Century Magazine.