October 24 Tuesday – In New York Sam sent a note to Frederick J. Hall directing him to send $175 to the steamer office for passage and funds for daughter Clara and her teacher’s daughter, Miss Katherine Willard.
I go to Hartford at noon to-morrow, (Wednesday) with my daughter. Please re-mail such letters as may arrive for us up to Saturday noon….Open all telegrams & re-wire them to me. SLC [MTP].
October 25 Sunday – Sam spent a good deal of his time working on the translation of Dur Struwwelpeter, or (Slovenly Peter) [Oct. 27 to Hall].
October 25 Tuesday – Mrs. John C. Pelton wrote from San Francisco in behalf of her husband, Prof. Pelton, asking Sam’s assistance and sending poetry. A recommendation bearing the names of the Governor of California, H.H. Markham, and other dignitaries, accompanied the letter. The flyer notes two books, My Book, and Sunbeams and Shadows [MTP].
October 25 Wednesday – Before leaving for Hartford, Sam enclosed Charles Langdon’s Oct. 24 letter (asking for payment of $1,705.93 for the James Rathbone note and interest payments) to Frederick J. Hall. See Aug. 8 for Langdon borrowing $8,000 from his friend Rathbone to help Webster & Co.
October 26 Monday – Sam continued work on the translation of Dur Struwwelpeter, or (Slovenly Peter) [Oct. 27 to Hall].
October 26 Thursday – Sam was in Hartford staying with the Charles Dudley Warners [Oct. 27 to Elderkin].
October 27 Tuesday – In Berlin at 7 Körnerstrasse, Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall.
October 27 Thursday – Paine includes a “memorandum” of Sam’s with this date:
October 27 Friday – In Hartford Sam responded to letters and a formal invitation from John Elderkin and Frank R. Lawrence about a forthcoming banquet:
October 28 Wednesday – In Berlin at 7 Körnerstrasse, Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall about the proposed translation of Dur Struwwelpeter, or (Slovenly Peter). Sam couldn’t buy plates or sheets of the book there. Publication of the book was attempted in N.Y. years before but abandoned. Sam was concerned about copyright of the German text. A US German-language edition had been published in St. Louis in 1862, which may account for the absence of any further discussion with Hall [MTLTP 289].
October 28 Saturday – Sam was in Hartford staying with the Charles Dudley Warners [Oct. 27 to Elderkin].
October 28-31 Tuesday – Sometime during this period Sam wrote a letter from either Hartford or New York to Livy about Isa Carrington Cabell and Susan Warner.
October 28 Sunday – At the Hotel d’Angleterre in Rouen, France, Sam wrote to Orion Clemens. The letter is lost but is mentioned in a Nov. 12 from Orion to Samuel Moffett. Orion relayed the news that Susy was all right again and they would leave the next day for Paris [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers, upbeat about the typesetter’s progress at the Chicago Herald tests:
October 29 Sunday – Sam was in Hartford staying with the Charles Dudley Warners [Oct. 27 to Elderkin].
October 29 Monday – Though the family had planned to travel on to Paris, the doctor in Rouen advised a two-day delay. At the Hotel d’Angleterre, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, asking him to send copies of PW when published to H.H. Rogers and Miss Katharine I. Harrison at 26 Broadway in N.Y.
We expect the doctor to let us leave for Paris day after tomorrow but it is a little uncertain [MTP].
October 3 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:
Avignon. Oct. 3.—leaving, 11 am. Papal palace. This old factory—for that is what it looks like, with its gray walls (that have a plastered look) & its straight lines & sharp corners & four or 5 chimney-like projections—absence of ornament, & utter & unapproachable ugliness.
Palace—why that is a word which suggests & promises elegance, ornament, beauty costly decoration, rich furniture not a stable, a factory [NB 31 TS 8].
October 3 Tuesday – In the morning, Sam was back in New York and wrote to daughter Clara:
Well, dear Ben, that little glimpse of you has done me a power of good. Was I indiscreet in talking as I did about my firm’s condition? I guess not; you will keep still & say nothing. It would hurt if any thing of our embarrassments got into print.
Thus far I haven’t felt any fatigue from my double journey [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Livy, with no news other than his trip to Elmira:
October 30 Friday – “Lewis the Light” of Phila. sent a fire & brimstone note with clippings under his pseudonym to Orion & Sam at Keokuk. Sam wrote, “Insane crank” on the envelope [MTP].
October 30 Sunday – In Florence, Sam sent a postscript to Laurence Hutton, consisting of a six-line verse, headed, “Respectfully Dedicated to the Author of the ‘Rhyme of the Guileless Gondolier’” [MTP].
Susy Clemens wrote to Louise Brownell:
October 30 Monday – Sam returned to New York with daughter Clara [Oct. 27 to Elderkin].
October 31 Saturday – The Brooklyn Eagle, Nov.1, 1891 (datelined Oct. 31) p.7, “Social Reform in Berlin,” reported on one of Sam’s engagements:
October 31 Monday – In Florence Sam wrote to Frank E. Bliss of the American Publishing Co., his old publisher.
I hear you are issuing a $1 edition of Tom Sawyer. I believe I have a 10 per cent royalty on that book. If so, go ahead; but I cannot consent to let your firm reduce the retail price of any other of my books without first making special contracts with me.
October 31 Tuesday – At 10 a.m. in New York, Sam shipped out daughter Clara on the liner Allee, bound for Europe. Clara was accompanied by Miss Katherine Willard, daughter of Clara’s Berlin schoolmaster. Later Sam wrote to Mary Mapes Dodge that Clara had just left and that if she had missed seeing her altogether, he guessed “the dentist was the reason.” He would be at her place for dinner on Thursday Nov. 2 by himself, unless she notified him otherwise [MTP].
October 31 Wednesday – The Clemens family left Rouen for the two-hour trip to Paris. Sam wrote of the move in his Nov. 2 to Rogers:
October 4 Sunday – Sam may have returned after midnight (Oct. 3-4). His notebook simply gives Oct. 4 as “Go to Ouchy” [NB 31 TS 7]. Rodney gives this as his date of return to Ouchy and says the family was packed and ready to travel [138]. In his Sept. 28 letter to Livy, Sam had suggested they go to Basel, Switzerland the day after his arrival, some 125 miles, and then on to Berlin on Monday, Oct. 5.
October 4 Thursday – At the Hotel d’Angleterre in Rouen, France, Sam discarded his first attempt at the Paul Bourget article and began a new one at noon, which he worked on till 2:10 a.m. [Oct. 5 to Rogers].