Life in Exile: Day By Day

November 29 Wednesday – Thomas Wardle Swainsley inscribed identically 2 volumes of Izaak Walton’s (1593-1683) Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Richd Hooker, George Herbert, &c. Ed. by H.A. Dobson (facsimile editon 1898): “To Mr. and Mrs. Clemens / A little souvenir of a short visit to Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton’s country, Beresford dale, the Dove and Manyfold from / Thomas / Wardle / Swainsley / November 29th 1899” [Gribben 740].

November 3 Tuesday – William McKinley defeated Williams Jennings Bryan in a campaign centering on free silver. Sam had hoped the silver men would win out, thus allowing him to pay his creditors with somewhat devalued currency (H.H. Rogers was a McKinley man).

November 3 Wednesday – Again Sam attended a session of the Austrian Reichsrath. During a break in the proceedings, Sam met Dr. Otto Lecher in the restaurant. Lecher had given the marathon speech on Oct. 28- 29, and it’s clear from Sam’s account of that night in “Stirring Times in Austria,” that he admired the man [Dolmetsch 74]. Note: Sam’s notebook for Nov. 3 has several pages of notes from 8:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. [NB 42 TS 44-47]

November 3 Friday – In London, Sam wrote to Mrs. Keenan

Your letter has given me very great pleasure, & I wish to thank you for taking the time and trouble to write it.

I had half a notion to put Huck & Tom into the Spanish war, but I was so slow about it that the war was over before I got them in.

November 30 Monday – Sam’s 61st Birthday.

Livy wrote to Andrew Chatto Jr. “Enclosed please find the check for the Swifts [bicycles] which you so kindly helped us to get. I think my daughters find cycling quite another thing now that they have their own machines” [MTP].

November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s 62nd Birthday.

In Vienna, Austria Livy wrote for Sam to Chatto & Windus [MTP].

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 63rd Birthday.

November 30 Thursday – London. Sam’s 64th Birthday.

Sam wrote to Frank Bliss:

“Dear Bliss: / Please send me, care Chatto, a copy of ‘Following the Equator.’

“How does the Harper assignment affect you—to your injury, or otherwise” [David Brass Rare Books; online Oct. 3, 2009; MTPO]

November 4 Wednesday Sam’s notebook for this day:

Clara went with Mrs. Hopekirk Wilson yesterday & saw a young English girl of 20 (pupil of Letzitinski’s) play before an audience for the first time. The girl’s name is Goodson, Clara says she is not pretty, but has a most interesting face [NB 39 TS 19]. Helen Hopekirk Wilson (1856-1945).

November 4 Thursday – Frank Bliss cabled Sam that there was a letter circulating supposedly from Sam that he had made $82,000 and paid all his debts. Bliss’ cable is not extant but referred to Sam’s following cable and letter replies.

At 10:22 a.m. at the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Bliss’s cable with one of his own: “LIE WROTE NO SUCH LETTER STILL DEEP IN DEBT / CLEMENS” [MTP].

He then wrote to Bliss that the rumor was not true and speculated what had caused it:

November 4 Saturday – In London, England Sam replied to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, who evidently sent payment for Sam’s “Lie” article. He enclosed the receipt and responded that he didn’t believe he “could write on those subjects—& anyway, I mustn’t; because I must punch myself up & bang along with my regular work” [MTP]. See Oct. 30.

November 5 Friday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens.

“I believe I have nothing to report but the love of the family & their tolerable health. Clara has begun her music lessons, Jean her several studies; Livy is busied in her several ways, & I in mine. The weather is good, & we are comfortable & satisfied. / Sam” [MTP].

With her piano lessons under Theodor Leschetizky under way, Sam and Theodor became friends.

A. Hoffman writes:

November 5 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Wrote Pond the Forum check hadn’t come” [NB 40 TS 49]. Note: “About Play Acting” ran in the Oct. 1898 issue of the Forum. “

November 6 Friday – In London Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I am very glad indeed that the contract is accomplished at last, both for your patient indomitable sake and for my sake — I can work the better now. And I am glad of what you say of Harry Harper. He always seemed to me to be a frank and straightforward man and a man of a good heart and an obliging disposition.

November 6 Saturday – The N.Y. Times ran “Mark Twain Still in Debt,” p.4 which included the cable Sam had sent to Bliss on Nov. 4. (The Hartford Courant ran essentially the same article on p. 12)

November 6 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to Richard Watson Gilder that he finished Nov. 13. Sam directed him to reject the MS of “My Platonic Sweetheart” if he hadn’t already. Sam felt the article was a mistake, though he’d liked it when he wrote it [MTP].

Sam also began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he finished Nov. 7.

November 6 Monday – Sam restarted his osteopathy treatments at Kellgren’s facility [Nov. 9 to Rogers].

Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford to Sam.

November 7 Saturday – Two copies of Tom Sawyer, Detective were received by the U.S. Copyright Office. The earliest copies of the first edition were published in Nov. or Dec. 1896 [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories, Afterword materials, p.27 1996 Oxford ed.].

November 7 Sunday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to William Blackwood.

Livy wrote the note and Sam signed it.

“I want to thank you most heartily for your note of the introduction [not extant] to Mme Laszowska: we have all enjoyed very much meeting her and hope that we may see a good deal of her during our sojourn in Vienna” [MTP].

November 7 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Nov. 6 to H.H. Rogers with a playful paragraph:

November 7 Tuesday – Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela A. Moffett:

It was really very kind of Dr. Steele to invent Osteopathy after Kellgren (the actual inventor of it) had already been curing all kinds of diseases with it when Dr. Steele was in his cradle cutting his teeth.

November 8 Sunday – In London Sam wrote to Henry C. Robinson, grateful and touched by a speech Robinson made. He remarked how it would have stirred Susy.

It was a beautiful speech, dear old friend, & I am glad you thought of me & sent it to me. I could see you — see you plainly, & hear every note of your voice, every inflection [MTP].

November 8 Monday – Eleanor V. Hutton (Mrs. Laurence Hutton) wrote to Sam, enclosing a five-page typed discussion of Helen Keller from Dr. Louis Waldstein’s book The Sub-Conscious Self. They were touched by Sam’s poem in Harpers to Susy, “In Memoriam” [MTP].

Joe Twichell wrote to Sam having rec’d his of Oct. 23 , to his “extreme comfort and delectation.” He asked that the distance between them not lead to dropping their friendship.

November 8 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a note and enclosed a MS to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, who had requested a story for the Christmas season. If Tuohy didn’t want the story sent (“The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”) would he please forward it on to H.H. Rogers, and the same with “Wapping Alice” when he received it [MTP]. Note: see Nov. 2.

November 8 Wednesday – In London, England Sam wrote to Dr. Sullivan, declining “an almost unresistable temptation” to appear at a club function, for he was a “bond slave to Fitzgerald’s Omar”. He didn’t want his name to appear in the papers while he was “doing the hermit act.” He thanked Mr. Walker for the invitation and Sullivan for conveying it. He also mentioned Livy, his family, and Dr. Jonas Henrick Kellgren: