January 17-21 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:
Where the English beat us, is in fun in the Church (“elections” of Bishops & clerical rows in the graveyard) cant; charity in work & cash; unconscious arrogance; (my neighbor) adultery in high places; incompetent cooks.
January 17 Wednesday – Jonas Henrick Kellgren Osteopath, billed £37.16.0 for the first half of January, Jan. 16 & 17, 1900 included, for Livy and Jean’s treatments [1900 Financial file MTP].
January 18 Monday – J. Woulfe Flanagan, London Times reporter, wrote on mourning stationery to complain about Clara’s piano playing. The piano was on the common wall between the flats in Clara’s upstairs bedroom. “It is my misfortune never to get to bed before 4 a.m. as I work on a morning paper….Will you think me very rude & unneighborly if I ask you as a great favour not to play the piano in the mornings?” [MTP].
January 18 Thursday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote a postcard and a letter to Poultney Bigelow (now in Chelsea, London) forwarding Harpers’ Jan. 6 referral of a request by J. Boyd Douglass. Sam asked Bigelow, “Will you transact this business for me?” Sam noted on the top margin about Harpers: “They retire from the position of helping me own my dramatic rights” [MTP].
January – Sometime during the month Sam inscribed a copy of JA to Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob (1841- 1917), English architect, engineer, and writer; active in India: Colonel Swinton Jacob
Now if I could only foregather with you again! There is no such good fortune for me; but neither I nor the rest will forget that we have had that privilege once. / Sincerely Yours / Mark Twain
London, January 1897 [MTP].
Sam’s notebook entries:
January – Robert Barr’s sketch, “Clemens, Samuel L. ‘Mark Twain.’ A Character Sketch” ran in the January 1898 issue of McClure’s Magazine, as well as in the Feb. issue of Idler [Tenney 28]. Publishers Weekly (London) Jan. 8, reviewed Barr’s article: “Mr. Barr is a man who himself possesses the secret of devising humorous and grotesque tales, and as he has been the close personal friend of Mark Twain for a long time, he gives an interesting study of him.”
January – Edwin Wildman’s article “Mark Twain’s Pets,” ran in St. Nicholas Magazine, p.185-8. Tenney: “Describes a visit to MT’s study at Elmira, New York, by E.M. Van Aken, to take pictures of his cats. Two photographs are here reproduced, together with one of the ‘Quarry Farm’ house, and there are engravings of the outside of MT’s octagonal study (here called the ‘Pilot House’; it is covered with vines) and of MT at work inside (‘Drawn from a photograph by E.M. Van Aken’).
January 19 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Frank E. Bliss about application for renewal of copyright on IA, which was expiring. He referred to Bliss’ Nov. 16, 1896 letter that the copyright would “not be legally ripe before Jan. 29, 1897.” Since that date was not far off, would Bliss please send the enclosed application to Ainsworth R. Spofford, Library of Congress, together with the appropriate fee?
January 19 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:
January 19 Friday – Sam also wrote to Henry Ferguson.
I tried to get that new book out of the Harpers’s hands, but you will see by the Enclosed [HHR’s of Jan. 9, top of] that they say it is in press—& therefore too late.
However, there are two volumes—the shipwreck [Hornet, 1866] is to be in the second one, I believe; so your emendations will reach New York plenty early enough, I have no doubt. They go by tomorrow’s steamer.
January – In London, England Sam wrote an aphorism to an unidentified man:
“We ought never to do wrong when any one is looking. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / London, Jan. 1900”
[MTP: Charles Hamilton catalog, 21 May 1965, No. 4, Item 31].
January 2 Saturday – The London Academy, p. 18 reviewed TS,D: “On the whole, this is a bright, readable book, with nothing of the detestable tendency to parody the wrong things which we have occasionally regretted in the author” [Tenney 26].
January 2 Sunday – Fatout lists a Vienna dinner and dance where Sam gave a speech or read a story [MT Speaking 665]. Note: Fatout gives no particulars and none were found.
January 2 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “San Remo—4 rooms & bath, $125 to 150 a month, ohne Nahrung.[without food] / John Tablock,[sic Tatlock] jr 32 Nassau” [NB 43 TS 4]. Note: in his Apr. 20, 1900 to H.H. Rogers, Sam wrote they might stay at the Hotel San Remo, N.Y.C. upon their return to America.
January 20 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote a short note to neighbor J. Woulfe Flanagan that he did not send: “You compliment me upon not having imitated your manners. I thank you very much” [MTP].
January 20 Thursday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
“Yours of the 5th is to hand. It is very good news: that when you have paid Barrow up, & the last 25% div. to the other creditors (except Grant & the Bank) we shall still have about $1,000 left in cash. This is exceedingly bully; the best music we have heard lately.” [Note: there is no extant HHR letter for Jan. 5, but there is one for Jan. 6—possibly Sam refers to the Jan. 6 letter].
January 20 Saturday – From the Royal Huts in Hindhead, England, Livy wrote to “Youth dear”:
January 21 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
Jan. 21. The other day I wrote Percy Mitchell (Paris) & asked him to try & get a copy of “Aurore” for me (containing Zola’s grand letter.) This is his answer:
“I hasten gladly to send you Zola’s letter. I had put it away among my archives under ‘Clean French literature.’ The compartment is empty now” [NB 40 TS 7-8]. Note: L’Aurore. Littéraire, artistique, social. (French periodical) [Gribben 32].
January 21 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled a response to a cable this day from H.H. Rogers. Rogers: “PROFIT $16,000.” Sam: “SPLENDID BIRD, SET HER AGAIN” [MTHHR 386n1 mentions; NB 40 TS 53].
January 21 Sunday – According to Livy’s letter of Jan. 20, the “two days” for a sitting room at the Royal Huts in Hindhead for herself and the girls, would have ended with this day, denoting a return to London either this evening or the following day.
January 22 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
January 22 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to William Dean Howells’ Jan 9.
January 23 Saturday– Sam’s notebook: 23d. He [Wilson] rushed out of shop in the Strand, without noticing whither he was going—struck a hand-cart, fell & hit the curbstone with back of his head. Surgeon says if he lives he will be mentally damaged [NB 41 TS 5].
January 23 Sunday – Sam read a newspaper article in today’s Tagblatt, which inspired him to write the essay, “The New War-Scare.” [Sotheby’s sale catalog, The Maurice F. Neville Collection of Modern Literature, 13 April 2004, Lot NO7980] Note: source reads in part:
January 23 Tuesday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam replied to Harper & Brothers’ Jan. 8 enclosure and query by Marie Wiertz, who wished to translate into French “Concerning the Jews.” Sam had no objections provided the postscript he’d written for the article, a copy of which he’d sent to H.H. Rogers, be added to the translation [MTP].