March 19 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Saturday, March 19. Susy’s birth-day. It was then that that dear life began which ended a year & seven months ago” [NB 40 TS 15].
The New York Times, p.BR185 reprinted an article from the London Academy.
Honor Be Unto Mark Twain.
From the London Academy.
March – The March issue of The Critic ran a full -length, double -page color portrait frontispiece of Mark Twain, from a pastel drawing by Everett Shinn (1876-1953). It was so noted by the New York Times, Mar. 3, p. BR9, which included a two-sentence squib that the caricature gave the impression that Twain was a very tall man. Perlman writes:
March 2 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister at 20 Hanover Square, London, declining his “kind invitation” to an unnamed gathering due to his “bereavement [MTP]. Note: MacAlister obviously replied, his letter not extant but implied by Sam’s Mar 2 to 24 response.
MacAlister was editor of Library magazine and member of the Savage Club.
March 2 Wednesday – Berta Tucholsky wrote from Vienna to Sam, congratulating him on his success and telling “how dearly I should like to translate your books into German” [MTP].
In Vienna, Austria, Sam inscribed a picture to Katy Leary: “To Katy Leary, with the affectionate good wishes of S.L. Clemens” [MTP].
March 2 Thursday – Sam inscribed his photograph to Countess Lutzow:
“It is best to do everything to-morrow, because it saves so much time to-day. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / To Madam la Comtesse Lutzow / With salutations & homage of / S.L. Clemens / March 2, 1899” [MTP].
March 2 Friday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam and Clara Clemens wrote to Mildred (Pilla) Howells, sending their approval and pride at her poem “The Particular Princess: An up to date Fairy Story,” which appeared in Feb. 17 issue p.144-5 of Harper’s Bazaar—Sam “choking up…& just damming away with a father pride…” and Clara “dammingly chokingly chucklingly sparkingly add my signature to the above”[MTP].
March 20 Sunday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam added a PS to his Mar. 17 letter to H.H. Rogers
P.S. But really you should come yourself—for some good sense and good diplomacy are necessary, on account of the promised auxiliary invention. You might find it worth while to wait to include it in the present Option, and you are the very man to know how to make them do it.
March 21 Monday – By his letter of Mar. 20 to Rogers, Sam seemed anxious to go to the reopening session of the Austrian Parliament this afternoon. In his Mar. 23 to Rogers he confirmed that he went:
“I was present at the opening of Parliament, but it was peaceable & dull; so I have not been there since.”
March 21 Wednesday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam replied to Frank Bliss.
All right—I perceive that I did tell Whitmore to get the asphalt-money from you. I had forgotten it. If he needs more money I will give him an order on Elmira, so that he will not have to go to you until a time when it will not inconvenience you. …
March 22 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, this time about a play he was “sending by very slow express,” Bartel Turaser by Philipp Langmann. Sam had translated it for Rogers to “exploit in American through” his “sub-theatrical agent.” He had also contracted to translate a comedy titled In Purgatory, by Ernst Gettke and Alexander Engel. Again Sam pushed for Rogers to visit Vienna [MTHHR 333].
March 22 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Poultney Bigelow and his invitation to get together (not extant).
Of course I should like it ever so much—it goes without saying—but if I see England by the middle of September that is the earliest I can hope for.
March 23 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote a postcard to Chatto & Windus, asking why Rogers’ first cable of Mar. 4 had not been received. Sam quoted from H.H. Rogers’ letter (not extant):
March 23 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers
March 23 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Annette Hullah.
March 23 Friday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote two postcards and a letter to John Y. MacAlister.
March 24 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to American Publishing Co.
correcting his cable address to “Care Bookstore London. / I gave it to you wrong before, I believe” [MTP]. Note: Sam had provided “Bookseller London” as his cable address, to Bliss and to Rogers, which caused Rogers’ Mar. 4 cable to be returned.
Sam also wrote a postcard to John Y. MacAlister, having survived a bout of lumbago, asked him to “come down & have another smoke” [MTP].
March 24 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, detailing the visit of Ludwig Kleinberg of the previous night. Sam closed with:
You & Mrs. Rogers need not hurry. If you reach here by the 1st of May it wil do. The country will be lovely, then.
March 24 Friday – The Clemens family awoke to a blanket of snow in Budapest, Hungary. The family headed out for some sightseeing in spite of the weather. First they attended the visitors’ gallery of the new Parliament building. When they entered the chamber “all eyes turned to the celebrities.” Livy and her daughters had caught cold so returned after lunch to the hotel (Katona calls their malady “a touch of the flu” p.111).
March 24 Saturday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote to Paul Kester in N.Y.
I should like to see Tom Sawyer staged. If you will agree upon royalties with Mr. Howells I will accept the result. You can arrange the rest of the business with my friend Mr. H.H. Rogers, 26 Broadway. And I wish you would leave with him a copy of the play, if you don’t mind. We have no copies of [plays] “Colonel Sellers” & “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” I believe.
March 25 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus to correct an oversight in JA, which he’d intended to be his silver-wedding gift to Livy when he began it in Florence in 1893. He had forgotten to request the dedication in the front pages and now sent the copy he wished them to insert: ,
TO MY WIFE 1895 Olivia Langdon Clemens
March 25 Friday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a short note to Frank Bliss suggesting he begin the Uniform Edition with IA, and then Harper” [MTP].
On Mar. 18 in his meeting with William M. Wood about the raster machine, Sam offered to make an appointment for the two of them for Mar. 25 at Jan Szcepanik’s laboratory [Dolmetsch 201]. Note: it is assumed they kept the appointment.
March 25 Saturday – Budapest, Hungary. Magyar Hirlap ran an article about Sam’s activities the day before, including Sam joking about bringing something to every place he ever visited: cholera to the Sandwich Islands, starvation to India, the jubilee of the Queen to England, and filibustering to Vienna; the paper added scarlet fever to Australia [Katona 112].
March 25 Sunday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote a short PS to his Mar. 24 to Paul Kester. Livy had advised against Kester seeking William Dean Howells’ help in dramatizing TS. Sam advised Kester to “Try him, anyway, & if he won’t, load the job onto Mr. Rogers; he is used to umpiring for me” [MTP].
March 26 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam made a dental appointment. He noted in his Mar. 25 to James R. Clemens that it was his only appointment since he’d seen him (probably on Mar. 8).
March 26 Sunday – In Budapest, Hungary Sam and his daughters went sightseeing, leaving Livy behind at the hotel with flu-like symptoms. There were many modern features of Budapest, a city of 800,000 with a quarter of those Jews, “even more assimilated and less discriminated against than the Jews of Vienna…” Budapest boasted the first electric streetcars in Europe and the first subway of any city, which would become a model for New York’s subway system.