September 19 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to John Brisben Walker, owner of Cosmopolitan.
Sure it’s the illegant conscience you’ve got, & few there be that can afford such an expensive one. Yes, the second cheque astonished—& gratified—me. I didn’t know what it was for; I merely uttered my little prayer of humble thanks & went & cashed it. Many would have thought God sent it; but I knew by the signature it was you.
September 20 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook entry of Sept. 21 related a dinner tale of this evening:
September 21 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers that he was “finishing an article about the assassination of the Empress” Elisabeth of Austria (see Sept. 17 entry for long excerpt from “The Memorable Assassination.”) If Edward Bok rejected and returned “My Platonic Sweetheart” Sam would like for Katharine I. Harrison to offer Bok the assassination piece, which would be shorter and cheaper. Life was less stressful now in Vienna:
September 22 Thursday – Lt. Colonel F.B. Bowyer-Lane of the Nimrod Club wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Sept. 25 notebook entry [NB 40 TS 46].
September 25 Sunday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Bram Stoker in London.
“Mr. Bowyer-Lane thinks that possibly he can place the ‘Bartel Turaser.’ What do you advise? Will you communicate with him? Or will you tell me what to say? Do you know him?” [MTP]. Note: “Lane-Bowen of the Nimrod Club” was the name Sam used in his July 6 to Chatto & Windus. He remains unidentified. “Bartel” is the play Sam had translated. See Mar. 15, Sept. 10 entries.
September 26 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok offering “The Memorable Assassination” piece for $600, which he had just completed and sent to H.H. Rogers with a “photo or two of the Empress & the funeral procession” [MTP]. Note: Sam gave his future “New address: Hotel Krantz, Neuemarket Vienna.”
Sam also wrote to Katharine I. Harrison, letter not extant but referred to in this notebook entry:
September 28 Wednesday – Gribben writes on Alfred von Berger’s Habsburg. Marchenspiel in drei Acten (Vienna 1898):
October – Ladies’ Home Journal ran “The Anecdotal Side of Mark Twain, p. 5-6.
October 1 Saturday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, thinking he’d been indiscreet in writing J. Henry Harper on Aug. 30 (see entry).
October 3 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.Q. Russ in Lynn, Mass. who had written (not extant) about ordering a bust of Sam done by the Russian sculptress, Theresa Fedorowna Ries.
October 5 Wednesday – Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam:
October 7 Friday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to James B. Pond, asking when he saw the editor of Forum to ask about Sam’s article “About Play-Acting.” Sam had not heard back from Forum (the piece ran in the Oct. issue). He expressed hope that they would return home “just a year from now— everything promises well for that.” He also noted the passing of another old, wandering lecturer:
October 10 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok, editor, Ladies’ Home Journal.
A good deal of the Autobiography is written, but I never work on it except when a reminiscence of some kind crops up in a strong way & in a manner forces me; so it is years too early yet to think of publishing— except now & then at long intervals a single chapter, maybe. I intend to do that. Someday. But it would not answer for your magazine.
October 11 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to the Paul E. Wirt Fountain Pen Co., Bloomsburg, Penn. with what appears to have been a prepared testimonial:
With a single Wirt Pen I have earned the family’s living for many years. With two, I could have grown rich. / Mark Twain [MTP].
Note: See insert: 1904 advertisement claimed that Sam used the Wirt pen for 25 years, or since 1879.
October 12 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, to give them his new address at the Hotel Krantz, NeuerMarket, Vienna. “We go there tomorrow” [MTP]. Note: The family did not check into the Krantz until Oct. 14 [NB 40 TS 47].
October 13 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam, enclosing a note of thanks from Brander Matthews, to whom Joe had sent compliments from Sam. “Here is also a leaf from a recent issue of “ the Spectator” he thought interesting. “What wouldn’t I give for a few afternoons of our pedestrian company out on the country roads and into the autumnal woods just now beginning to turn.” He added that Sam’s article in the last Forum on play-acting was perfect.
October 14 Friday – The Clemens family left Kaltenleutgeben, and moved into the Hotel Krantz in Vienna [NB 40 TS 47].
October 15 Saturday – The New York Times, Oct. 30, p. 7, “Coffee Houses In Vienna…Mark Twain’s Warm Eulogy,” with dateline Oct. 15:
October 17 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz, Austria, Sam wrote to Bettina Wirth. He explained the English expression, “So-long,” and the double-standard of its application.
October 18 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.
The 3 books have come. Many Thanks.
October 19 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Edmund Kloieda.
“I am sorry that I am not able to comply, but I shall lecture only once during the next twelvemonth, & for that lecture I have already engaged myself. When I was younger I had no distaste for lecturing, but now that I am old it is to me an almost unendurable distress & discomfort.”
October 20 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a letter of introduction for Herr Van Dyke to Laurence Hutton: “any kindness you & Mrs. Hutton may show him is a kindness shown to me.” Sam requested that Hutton introduce Van Dyke to the Players Club and also the Century magazine staff
[MTP]. Note: could this have been Henry Van Dyke, later professor of literature at Princeton?
October 22 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an inscription and an aphorism to Miss Annette Hullah: “To Miss Annette Hullah from her best friend—/ Oct. 22/98. S.L. Clemens / All of us contain Music and Truth, but the most of us can’t get it out” [MTP]. Note: Miss Hullah was an English pupil of Theodor Leschetizky; she wrote a study of her teacher in 1906, Theodor Leschetizky.
October 23 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote from N.Y. to Sam.
October 28 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an autographed aphorism on a notecard to an unidentified person: “Nothing is so ignorant / as a man’s left hand, / except a lady’s watch”
[MTP: Sotheby’s, NY catalog, Oct. 29, 1996].
The New York Times of Nov. 13, 1898, p. 19 ran “In The Austrian Capital” (unsigned) with a Vienna dateline of Oct. 28. The article included this passage on Mark Twain:
A MEDALLION OF MARK TWAIN