February 10 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:
“Dinner at the Embassy. Present, the German Ambassador; Marquis Hoyos; Nigra, Italian Minister; Paraty, Portuguese Minister; Löwenhaupt, Swedish Minister; Ghika, Roumanian Minister; Secretaries &c from the various Embassies—& ladies. 30 guests” [NB 40 TS 12]. Note: Charlemagne Tower was the American ambassador and host for this evening. Dolmetsch (p.154) gives a good bio sketch of Tower.
February 10 Friday – President William McKinley signed the peace treaty with Spain, with the U.S. paying Spain twenty million dollars for specific Spanish holdings in the Philippines. Many saw the payment as a purchase of the Philippines. The treaty turned Sam off about this being a just war and led to his staunch anti-imperialism. The treaty had been ratified by Congress on Jan. 9.
February 10 Saturday – The New York Times, p. BR1, an anonymous squib: “Topics of the Week.”
February 11 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, ordering two books, one “something that will explain the law of whom to leave cards on” [MTP: American Art Assoc. catalogs, Apr. 18, 1929, Item 76]. Note: English etiquette regarding calling cards was evidently somewhat foreign to the Clemens family.
February 11 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, replying to a letter (not extant) of several weeks before.
Considering all the circumstances a 20,000 sale is certainly a little disappointing, for it is a most attractive-looking book; however, maybe the times will improve. They have been bad about long enough.
February 11 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to an unidentified man, that his “engagements already overburden me, & to add to them would not be wise” [MTP].
The Utica N.Y. Saturday Globe ran an article identifying the original of Colonel Sellers in The Gilded Age as James W. Wardner [Tenney 30: The Twainian Jan-Feb, 1957 p.4].
February 12 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied again to Arthur E. Gilbert, who evidently had queried him about the shape of the stem for the pipe he was naming after Mark Twain.
Yes, large bowl with inclined stem—don’t like straight stem. Send the one you are naming for me.
I enclose the address of a pipe-dealer—the only one my wife knows. She buys my pipes for me. This dealer tries to keep the Peterson, but is generally out of stock when I want one.
February 12 Monday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam replied to Samuel G. Blythe (incoming letter not extant).
Objections? Indeed no. On the contrary I shall be glad.
February 13 Saturday – The Hartford Courant, p. 8, ran “An Appreciation of Mark Twain,” observing from William Dean Howells’ May 30, 1896 review of JA (reprinted in MMT p.150-6):
Mr. Howells, in his department in “Harper’s Weekly,” has a hearty appreciation of Mark Twain. He lauds in particular one of the humorist’s books which mortally offended the English [ CY] and which the majority of Americans, perhaps, will not agree with Howells in regarding as Mr. Clemens’s best work…
February 13 Sunday – J. Brander Dunbar wrote to Sam questioning his use of a quotation on p. 305 of More Tramps Abroad, (FE). The quotation was by Roualeyn Gordon Cumming (1820-1866), Scottish traveler and sportsman who had written many African hunting safari articles, including some to Harper’s. Dunbar (and Dunbar’s cousin) claimed to have the original quotation, and judged that Sam’s use of it “is at variance with it.” He asked what source Sam used for the quote [MTP].
February 13 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam “in reply to your letter of February 7th,” giving a list of his works which had not been given permission for translation into French: 1. More Tramps Abroad (FE); 2. JA; 3 TS,D; 4 TSA; 5 PW; 6 £ 1,000,000 Bank Note. Numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6 had already been translated into German by Robert Lutz of Stuttgart [MTP].
February 13 Tuesday – Sir Gilbert Parker (1862 -1932) wrote from London to Sam. “We have been so sorry to miss you this afternoon, a regret that owing to our electric bells having gone wrong your ring was evidently not heard.” Parker found Sam’s card after he’d left [MTP].
February 14 Wednesday – Henry C. Robinson, longtime friend of the Clemenses, and ex-mayor of Hartford, died at his home at 6 a.m. [Hartford Courant “Death of Mr. Robinson” Feb. 15, 1900 p.9]. Note: See Feb. 16 to Lucius Robinson; Mar. 30 to Whitmore.
Lucius Robinson cabled news of his father’s death. Cable not extant; referred to in Sam’s Feb. 16 reply.
John M. Hay wrote on State Department note paper to Sam.
February 15 Tuesday – In the evening the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, resulting in war between America and Spain. The exact cause of the explosion remains a mystery.
February 15 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Charles Dudley Warner, whose letter is not extant.
Oh, I hope it isn’t a case of “never.” As nearly as we can guess, we shall get back home next fall. I recognise that the friends are passing, & that if we would see the remnant we must not delay too long. It has become a funeral procession, & if I want to get a good place in it I must apply soon.
February 15 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “In my father’s house are many flats” [NB 43 TS 5].
Jonas Henrick Kellgren Osteopath, billed £21.0.0 for the last half of February, Feb. 15, 1900 included, for Jean’s treatments [1900 Financial file MTP].
Patrascan wrote a long fan letter (in French) from Bacau, Romania to Sam [MTP].
February 16 Tuesday – Dial included “Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain,” by D.L. Maulsby, p. 107-9. “A general defense of Cooper against MT’s exaggerated charges, though conceding defects in characterization and style. Some of Cooper’s descriptions are based on personal observation, and MT, unfamiliar with the locale, is presumptuous to criticize. Cooper’s works have the merits of their out-of-door atmosphere and essentially American quality” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p.
February 16 Friday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote to Lucius Robinson.
Your cablegram gave me another stab in the heart—& there have been so many in these four disastrous years! Susy Clemens, Ned Bunce, Libby Hammersley, the Cheney children, others and still others—& now Henry Robinson, friend, wise adviser & beloved comrade from the day we first met till now.
February 17 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, enclosing J. Brander Dunbar’s letter of Feb. 13 (see entry). Sam wrote Dunbar that he copied the quotation in question from a “small book of travels & adventures,” but that he didn’t recall the title or the author. He asked Chatto to write Dunbar and refer him to the chapter and page of Roualeyn Gordon Cumming’s book (unspecified).
February 17 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Annette Hullah, a student of Theodor Leschetizky.
It was a very great pleasure you gave me in putting that book into my hands; it had ended-up a good many days comfortably & interestingly for me after my drudge of work. I thank you lots & lots.
February 17 Saturday – Sam looked in on Henry M. Stanley, who had been treated by Dr. Henrick Kellgren from Sam’s recommendation. Stanley had improved greatly since his first treatment on Feb. 15; he had bacon and eggs and spoke with Sam for an hour and a half [Feb. 27 to Rogers]. See also Feb. 15 letter from Mrs. Stanley.
February 18 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:
Feb. 18/97. Brilliant morning (very rare). Some of the people looked glad to be alive. But not many. Walked an hour in King’s Road (as usual) between Markham Square & the Chelsea Polytechnic—back & forth. Shakespeare’s people all on hand, as usual.
O Mother of Thugs!
February 18 Saturday – Hy Mayer’s article, “Unconventional Statues—V. ‘Would Make a Sphinx Laugh,’” ran in The Criterion (N.Y.), p.15: Tenney: “A full-page cartoon of MT, pipe in mouth, sitting in a lap of a laughing sphinx statue” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) 7].
Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Sam [MTP:NYPL not yet in file]. In Gilder Letter-Press Book v.4 p. 189.
February 18 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “There are no wild animals until man makes them wild” [NB 43 TS 6].
February – The London Bookman p. 151-2 reviewed TS,D: “We have liked Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn better in other circumstances,” but there are “much feebler things” in the book: “In ‘Adam’s Diary’ Mark Twain is at his feeblest and vulgarest; he fell no lower in ‘A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur’” [Tenney 26].