Life in Exile: Day By Day

October 8 Monday – The Clemens family was en route from London to New York on the SS Minnehaha.

October 9 Friday – At 23 Tedsworth Square in London Sam wrote to Douglas Garth about problems with the house they’d rented: the chimney was “broken and canted into the form of an elbow,” driving them out of the drawing-room when they tried to build a fire. Sam also wanted to pay for having some electric wire strung to hook up two or three lightbulbs in the room. Other than those needs Sam wrote,

We find ourselves most comfortably housed, & very very glad to be settled at home [MTP].

October 9 Monday – In New York, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.

October 9 Tuesday– The Clemens family was en route from London to New York on the SS Minnehaha.

September 1 Tuesday – Chatto & Windus sent a form letter of their move to St. Martin’s Lane [MTP].

September 1 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.

We are progressing handsomely, and are greatly obliged to you for putting us on the track. I suppose you will be returning to London soon. We shall reach there the last day of this month and may remain till mid-winter or longer. Then I will powerfully discourage the weekly newspaper project unless you can prove that the wear and tear of it will not destroy your health [MTP].

September 1 Saturday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to Colonel Green (not further identified).

September 10 Thursday – In Guildford, England Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

September 10 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Francis H. Skrine in Perthshire, Great Britain.

The cigars have come, & they give me a noble relief & vacation from the Swiss article. Thank you ever so much. I do not know, now, what I wrote you; but whatever it was, be charitable—for there was no August day in which I was in my right mind—& there will never be an August day, perhaps, in which I shall be sane. It is our terrible month. …

….

September 10 Saturday – Elisabeth of Bavaria (“Sisi”), Empress of Austria (1837-1898) was assassinated in Geneva by young anarchist Luigi Lucheni, who wanted to kill any royal, and had been unable to find a prince from the House of Orleans. Clemens would write on Sept. 13 to Joe Twichell of Elisabeth as, “That good and unoffending lady,” and that he was “living in the midst of world-history again.”

September 11 Friday – The Clemenses and Katy Leary went to London. Sam’s letter of Sept. 14 to Whitmore reveals that Livy was still out house-hunting.

September 11 Saturday – The New York Times passed part true, part false information on in “Mark Twain’s New Book,” p. BR1:

September 11 Sunday – Livy wrote to Susan L. Crane:

Of course all Austria is in grief over the terrible news of the assassination of he Empress. What a hideous thing it is!

September 12 Tuesday – Laurence Hutton wrote from Princeton, NJ to Sam.

Dear Marcus / Here we are again. This is what the Sun says about us. If you don’t mind it, I don’t. But, I wouldn’t accept your death, Mark, as a gift.

I hope your part of the statement is true. Tell us.

I wrote you a few days ago from Paris. We expect to be settled here—at the Inn—in a couple of weeks.

And to be “At Home” in the New House by Thanksgiving time. Come. / Love …. [MTP].

September 12 Wednesday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam replied to J.L. Bishop, whose incoming letter is not extant. Sam listed “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg,” and “The book to be published 100 years hence” and said “No” to each of them; “3. Another? Yes.

And it promises to reach a finish by and by; though not very soon, I hope, since the fun is not in publishing a book, but only in writing it” [MTP]. Note: Bishop is not identified.

September 13 Sunday – In London, Sam sent a letter of thanks to Charles J. Langdon. (This is the first of several letters with a return address of c/o Chatto & Windus, 111 St. Martin’s Lane, London.)

September 13 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam received a letter (not extant) from H.H. Rogers. He replied that Rogers’ letter “has give us a grand uplift.” The Clemens’ funds invested by Rogers were doing well, and Sam suggested Rogers keep “all the money I can make on the platform” and take the profits Rogers could make it yield, “over and above its own personality.” They both were grateful. As to the debts, he requested Rogers to keep the money “a spell longer” until there might be enough “to sweep off our debts at one wipe.”

September 13 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Joe Twichell [MTP].

September 13 Thursday – Chatto & Windus published 2,000 additional copies of the 6s.0d. English edition of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, for a total of 8,000 [Welland 238].

September 14 Monday – In London Sam wrote two letters to Franklin G. Whitmore about the Hartford house rental and associated matters. In the first letter he also mentioned “a notice of Susy by George Warner and a little poem by Annie Trumbull.” (Editorial emphasis.) After writing the first letter, a letter and statement of affairs came from Whitmore.

September 14 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam replied to John Y. MacAlister in London, whose recent invitation (not extant) to speak or preside at a meeting of the Savage Club in November had arrived. Sam couldn’t go unless business also demanded, for it took him six days to travel to London since he wouldn’t travel at night. And by no means would he preside:

September 14 Thursday – Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam to suggest they would publish two additional volumes: a book of stories, with “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as its “splendid pièce de résistance,” and a book of articles [MTHHR 414n3].

September 14 Friday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to James B. Pond.

September 15 Wednesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking that their mail be forwarded for ten days to Salzburg, poste restante, and after that in care of Thomas Cook & Son, Vienna. Livy requested a copy of Review of Reviews which contained a recent article of William Thomas Stead’s on Twain. Sam held in “grateful remembrance” all that Chatto and Spalding had done [MTP].

September 15 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam began a letter to Major H.F. Gordon Forbes, author, living at this time in Boulogne. (Sam added a PS on Sept. 23.) Forbes’ letter had taken over three months to reach Sam, but from postmarks where the delay was Sam could not tell. He informed Forbes he would be in Sanna until Sept. 27 and at the Queen Anne Mansions for the winter starting Sept. 30.