July 12 Thursday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to James R. Clemens.
Those were the best Indian cigars I have smoked outside of Calcutta. Won’t you please order 100 to be sent to me at above address, & the bill for the same.
We of the family send warm greetings to you & Mamma Caroline & Muriel. I suppose you are flown from London by this time, but I expect this to be forwarded… [MTP].
July 13 Tuesday – The Clemens family left Flushing, Belgium and traveled on to Cologne, arriving after midnight (July 14); they took rooms at the Victoria Hotel. Sam’s notebook gives particulars, beginning with the railroad station in Flushing.
Huge map 15 x 15 feet (Holland) in the RR station—made of tiles—brilliant polish, strong colors, vividly readable at a great distance—beautiful—& good sense.
July 13 Thursday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Laurence Hutton in London in care of Chatto & Windus.
So you sail Sept. 1st —and we shan’t get a glimpse of you two, for which we are very very sorry. We are here till October taking the Swedish movement-cure. I am taking it myself, for the mental & physical refreshment it furnishes, though there’s nothing the matter with me. We left Clara in London (c/o Chatto & Windus); she will sail for here July 28.
July 13 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “House Commons tea with Provand, M.P., 4. / Dine at MacAlister’s. / After dinner, take Mac to Savile Club, 107 Piccadilly, W. & smoke with Brander Matthews & Bronson Howard & Austin Dobson” [NB 43 TS 22]. Note: See July 11 for Bronson Howard info. Henry Austin Dobson (1840-1921), English poet and essayist; two volumes cited by Gribben, p. 196
July 14 Wednesday – The Clemens family arrived in Cologne, Germany at 12:30 after midnight. They had to settle for rooms at the Victoria Hotel, discovering there was no “Grand Hotel.” Sam’s notebook gives particulars:
arr. Cologne 12.30 a m—no hotel—went to the Victoria after sending a telegram to the imaginary “Grand.” H–l of a hotel, but cheap, 43 marks for everything, i.e. lodging & breakfast-coffee.
July 14 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Robert Lutz, sending him the finished biographical sketch which his nephew, Samuel E. Moffett had completed from Sam’s draft. Sam informed him it would be published in the 22-volume Uniform Edition of his works. “It is plenty long enough, & I shall be glad to see it take the place of the longer one you are now publishing” [MTP].
July 14 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “In afternoon Mac & wife & Saml Bergheim will drive out to Dollis Hill” [NB 43 TS 22].
At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to F.S. Higman, London, that he had “quitted the field” for lecturing, “permanently” [MTP].
July 15 Thursday – Lucerne, Switzerland. Sam wrote to Henry M. Stanley. Cue: “Professor Levi of Michigan University” [MTP]. Note: letter UCCL 13296 is currently unavailable at MTP.
July 15 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
July 15. The Duke de Frias gambled himself deep into debt & had to leave his Embassy & fly to Madrid with his young wife & young child. Count Coudenhove, & Countess Wydenbruck-Esterházy say his estates are exhausted & he is a ruined man. He is hardly 30.
————
Rudolph Lindau spent part of to-day with us—on his way back to his post at Constantinople. Looks as well as ever.
————
July 15 Saturday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam replied to Daniel Willard Fiske (incoming letter not extant).
Then inside of 3 weeks we shall see you! Good! God could not arrange it better. Except in one way; to reduce the 3 weeks to 3 days. That would increase my reverence & compel my praise.
July 15 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “About this time make week-end at Cambridge with Livy” (Prof. A.C. Haddon, F.R.S.) [NB 43 TS 22]. Note: Dr. Alfred Cort Haddon (1855-1940) an influential British anthropologist and ethnologist.
July 16 Friday – Sam and his family went to Weggis, a quiet village of less than 1,400 residents about a half-hour from Lucerne by boat. “By chance” he’d been recommended to the Pension (boardinghouse) Bühlegg, which did not advertise as the other hotels and boardinghouses there did. The boardinghouse was run by Alois Dahinden
July 16 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking that he send “a couple of the very best of Clark Russell’s sea-tales.” He also wanted some smaller pictures of himself, and asked if they hadn’t heard from daughter Clara to please write her. He ended with, “Jönköping is pronounced Zhenshepping—think of that!”[MTP].
July 16 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “PLASMON 12 / Smythe, 16 Adams st Portmon Square” [NB 43 TS 22].
At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to C.F. Moberly Bell, editor of the London Times, and enclosed, “The Missionary in World-Politics,” which he wanted printed anonymously. He did not send the note nor the essay, however.
Dear Mr. Bell:
Don’t give me away, whether you print it or not.
July 17 Saturday – The Clemens party was at the Hotel Union in Lucerne, making ready the move to Weggis the next day. Arrangements were made with E.H. Roth-Näf of Lucerne for a rental piano for Clara to be shipped to Weggis. It would arrive on July 19 [Locher 10]; see entry.
July 17 Tuesday – Richard Watson Gilder of Century wrote to Sam (who enclosed this letter to H.H. Rogers on Aug. 17):
Before leaving London I had your telegram [July 6] about the impossibility of “promising.” While that, of course, disappointed me a good deal, still the very word “promise” leaves a little hope that perhaps a promise might be made later; that is, within a certain time when it would still be available for us.
July 18 Sunday – The Clemens party arrived in Weggis, Switzerland, where they took residence at the Villa Bühlegg, what Dolmetsch calls, “a pension [boardinghouse] in the village of Weggis, about an hour by paddlewheel steamer up the lake from the city of Lucerne” [21].
Sam’s notebook includes a lot of description of the family’s new surroundings. In part:
July 18 Tuesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Mollie Clemens. His letter is not extant but was transcribed in a letter from Pamela A. Moffett to her son, Samuel on Aug. 3. Sam wrote of the biographical sketch that his nephew had done of him for the Uniform Edition of his works. He wrote they would return to England in the fall and sail for American before spring [MTP].
July 18 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Write George Standring, 7 & 9 Finsbury st. E.1 Printer” [NB 43 TS 22].
Note: George Standring (b.1855), author of The People’s History of the English Aristocracy (1891) [Gribben 657]. Standring visited Sam some time during the Dollis Hill stay, enjoying a smoke with him. See Jan. 1, 1903.
July – Place unknown (but likely London): Sam sent aphorisms to Henry P. Child:
Universal brotherhood is the most precious thing we have, what there is of it.— Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar.
To succeed in the other trades, knowledge must be shown; in the law, the concealment of it will do.— Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / (S.L. Clemens) / July, 1897 [MTP]. Note: Ancestry.com in the U.K. has one record for Henry P. Child, b. ca. 1824 in Yorkshire.
July – Noah Brooks’ article, “Early Days of the Overland,” ran in the Overland Monthly p. 3-11. Tenney: “Contains passing reference to MT, pp. 7-9, as one of the contributors to the Overland Monthly” [29]. Note: an excerpt from this article ran in the Apr. 1899 issue of the same publication [30].
July – Anne E. Keeling’s article, “American Humour: Mark Twain,” ran in the London Quarterly Review, p.147-62. Tenney: “(Source: Asselineau (1954), No. 18; reprinted in Anderson (1971), pp. 221-27.) Discusses the joking in IA, the irreverence in CY, the indictment of slavery in PW and FE, calling MT ‘this sturdy foe of oppression and injustice, this lover of the heroic and the magnanimous…who still continues to provide clean, wholesome food for laughter, under the familiar style of Mark Twain’” [30-1].
July 19 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland a rented piano arrived for Clara to use during their stay.
Locher writes,
Clara still played the piano (though she would later be persuaded that her real strength was her voice), and her father rented an instrument for her in Lucerne. It arrived July 19th, one day after the family settled in Weggis. The transport was arranged by the firm of E.H. Roth- Naf, of Lucerne, who also supplied the bicycles, for Clemens had noted their address and he watched the delivery [Locher 10-11].
July 19 Wednesday – Joe Twichell wrote to Livy, this day or the next, July 20 [MTP].
July 19 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “The time we supported young Bartlett on surreptitious remittances & he pretended they came from a rich uncle. Told of the Lizt days in Weimar—’53-‘54” [NB 43 TS 22].