To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day

January 15 Friday – Mollie Clemens (Mrs. Orion Clemens; Mary Eleanor Stotts) died at age 69 in Keokuk, Iowa. [NY Times, Jan. 16, 1904, “Obituary Notes,” p.9]. Note: Sam referred to not telling Livy of Mollie’s death in his Feb. 14 to Carpenter.

January 16 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Rogers’s man who had slept in fertilizer & stunk the car. / Junkman, Waterbury, & dial. / Boston Tavern Club / Corpse & guns. / Howells. Time, 7—will go at 9.15” [NB 44 TS 3].

Fatout lists a dinner speech by Sam at Tavern Club in Boston. He does not furnish the text or the subject, however the above NB entry suggests some and gives the standard late time for Sam to arrive [MT Speaking 668]. Note: see entries Vol. I for the Club.

January 16 Thursday – Fatout lists a “talk or reading” for Sam at the Civic Club in Riverdale for this date [MT Speaking 669]. Note: though no particulars are given, a listing in Sam’s NB for 8.15 names the Club [NB 45 TS 2].

January 16 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Katharine I. Harrison.

The Plasmon Co will send you some Plasmon stock for me. That is what I had to have $10,000 for, & that is why I sold the Union Pacific pf. Do not conceal it from Mr. Rogers. He will think it an unwise investment—still, I want him to know. I shan’t conceal any of my performances from him.

January 16 Saturday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, enthused about the method of dictating his autobiography. He’d not yet uttered a sentence that Livy felt needed changing. He recommended the technique to Howells then shared his schedule for dictating.

January 17 Thursday – The planned date of return from Boston to New York. Sam, however, traveled either this day or Jan. 18 to Washington, D.C., the purpose of his trip not known. Sam’s notebook does not have an entry for either this day or the next.

January 17 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Engaged at home” [NB 45 TS 2].

January 17 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.

January 17 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Countess Valgoria / Via Cennini 2 / 4.30 to 7” [NB 47 TS 4].

Countess Frances R. Massiglia wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s reply of Jan. 18 per Clara.

January 18 Friday – Sam went to Washington, D.C. purpose not known.

January 18 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Daniel Carter Beard.

I cannot tell you how much I like the pictures; I think you have not made better nor bitterer ones, nor any that were redder with the bloody truth. As to the book, I cannot make an estimate, for I was not able to steal time for a careful & searching examination, uninterrupted, of even a single chapter, and necessarily I would not permit myself to have an opinion without that.

January 18 Sunday – The New York Times, p.21, “Autographs at Auction” reported various letters sold and prices. Two of Mark Twain’s letters sold:

January 18 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Daniel Willard Fiske.

“I have been in to ask Mrs. Clemens, and she says ‘Give him my love, and say I have been very wretched but am better today; and tell him our day is Thursday, and we say this because we want to see him & talk with him, not get mere glimpses of him on the road’” [MTP].

Sam also replied per daughter Clara to Frances R. Massiglia’s Jan. 17 note (not extant).

January 19 Saturday – Sam was in Washington, D.C. where he gave a brief interview reported in a special to the New York Times for Jan. 20, p.1.

MARK TWAIN ON HAZING.

Calls West Point Cadets Who Indulge in it Cowards.

Special to the New York Times.

January 19 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to David A. Munro, editor of the North American Review to remind him that if McCrackan’s article wasn’t included in the March issue, then Sam wanted to be in it himself [MTP].

January 19 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Mailed ‘St. Joan of Arc’ to the Harpers…(Mailed it Jan. 19, but wrote Jan. 20 to recall it” [NB 47 TS 4]. Note: Sam wrote this under Jan. 14 NB entry. Also under this day: “Countess Crenville / 5 Via Dante da Castiglione / Lunch, 1 p.m.” [ibid.].

An unidentified person sent a telegram to Sam: “Mollie gone” is all it reads; the place sent is Italian but illegible [MTP].

January 19 Sunday – Alletta F. Dean wrote to Sam. Paine gives us backstory and quotes Dean’s letter:

“The Double -Barrelled Detective Story,” [In Jan. and Feb. 1902 Harper’s] intended originally as a burlesque on Sherlock Holmes. It did not altogether fulfill its purpose, and is hardly to be ranked as one of Mark Twain’s successes. It contains, however, one paragraph at least by which it is likely to be remembered, a hoax—his last one—on the reader. It runs as follows:

January – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Mrs. Ira L. Smith in Hopkinsville, Ky. stating that the Library of Literature was wrong and Review of Reviews was right: “I was born in the village of Florida, Mo.” [MTP].

Lecky writes that Sam’s short essay, “History 1,000 Years from Now” (the title is Paine’s), “may well have been the germ of ‘Eddypus,’” and that it was written this month [Fables of Man 386-7].

January – Sam inscribed a copy of Songs of Nature (1901) by John Burroughs (1837-1921): “S.L. Clemens, Riverdale, Jan. 1902” [Gribben 117]. Note: Burroughs was a naturalist and essayist important to the movement of conservation in the U.S. His books were enormously popular in his day. He was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1905.

January – The North American Review included the second installment of Mark Twain’s series, “Christian Science II” (p.1-9) written in 1897-8 in Vienna. The installments ran monthly From Dec. 1902 through the Apr. 1903 issue. A book would result from these articles, though Harpers would delay it till 1907.

January to May, 1904 — Daniel Willard Fiske wrote a note on a brown scrap of paper:  Since 2 this a.m. I am enjoying a stalwart assault of gout.  Mrs. Schaeffer, sister of Eugene Schuyler, his biographer and the editor of his writings, with her interesting daughter, is at the Villino Montebello. I don’t [know] whether you know her or not. Kindest regards and best wishes to Mrs. Clemens & the house hold [MTP]

January 2 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Rose’s address: 45 W 46th” [NB 44 TS 2].

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote a postcard to Augustus T. Gurlitz: “Please send me the name & address of the man whose letter (from Florida) I sent you yesterday” [MTP]. Note: the man was Justus S. North, of Welaka, Fla.

January 2 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Horace N. Allen, American Minister to Korea:

“It is a beautiful box, & I cannot tell you how much I prize it and thank you for it.

With my kindest regards to you & the boys…” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Jaccaci, of McClure’s came up yesterday, and said Miss Tarbell would be only too glad to have both sides, and I told him she could have free access to the Standard Oil’s archives.

January 2 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).

January 2 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Italian Without a Master” ran in Harper’s Weekly for Jan. 2, 1904.

It was included in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].