April 5 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Miss Margaret Sherry.
Mrs. Clemens thanks you ever so much for the lovely Easter token, which arrived this morning & brought us all very near to you & most pleasantly. Mrs. Clemens tells me to send you her love & say that she has missed you so much this winter, and many & many a time has wished you back.
April 6 Saturday – Thomas B. Reed wrote to Sam, a typed letter on his law offices letterhead, 10 Wall Street. He included a prospectus. Reed suggests “You and Mr. Rogers and I take this whole thing.” He explained it was a solicitation for stock in a Maine corporation that would offer each poor man twenty acres to farm, give him board and lodging, etc. and make him worth $10,000 in five years [MTP]. Note: On Apr. 11 Sam forwarded the letter and prospectus along with his note, to Emilie R. Rogers
April 6 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Smooth sea, sunny & pleasant. No cards. Reed played solitaire. ‘ignorant of music’ = Reed / Reached Norfolk midnight” [NB 45 TS 9]. Note: Sam’s ship log gave part of this report.
Livy’s diary: “Miss Forth & Miss Bowman here for tea” [MTP: DV161].
April 6 Monday – Mr. and Mrs. John Bergheim lunched with Sam in the Riverdale house. They would sail for England the next morning [Apr. 7 to MacAlister].
Adeline W. Sterling wrote to Sam, enclosing letters and clippings on Christian Science. After investigating “alleged cures” of the cult, Sterling decided not to join [MTP].
April 6 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Marchesa Alli Macarani / Lung Arno del Tempio 2 / Spanish Consul / 1s t & 3d Wednesday s. / Princess de Rohan” [NB 47 TS 8].
Edward B. Caulfield wrote “a hurried pencil note” to Sam, that he would be engaged after 12 the following day and could not stop by [MTP].
Harper & Brothers wrote a short note that they were sending six copies of Extracts from Adam’s Diary with their compliments [MTP].
April 7 Sunday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote a postcard to his attorney Augustus T. Gurlitz.
“It is not likely that I can leave the house for some days to come. I am still bedridden” [MTP: Sotheby’s, NY, 11 Dec. 1990, Item 382].
April 7 Monday – The Kanawha was at Old Point Comfort, Va. The New York Times ran a special on the progress of the cruise on the first page, April 8 issue.
COMING BACK FROM CUBA.
———
The Kanawha with ex-Speaker Reed and Mark Twain at Newport News.
Special to The New York Times.
April 7 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam cabled John Y. MacAlister in London, receipt of £35 “in full payment for article entitled ‘Amended Obituaries,’ sold …to Lloyd’s Weekly” [MTP].
Sam also wrote a letter to John Y. MacAlister that he forgot to post and finished on May 8.
April 7 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister in Leysin, Switzerland.
April 8 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Mrs. Day, dinner” [NB 44 TS 8].
April 8 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Before midnight, storm came on. Much rolling. Violent squalls of wind, with downpour of rain, lightning—one boom of thunder, rather mellow. Took shelter in Delaware breakwater before dawn. Several other vessels—coal tugs outside with women & children in the barges. Myriad of ducks / On Knees for Matches. Fine piece of navigating” [NB 45 TS 9].
Sam’s ship log offers a somewhat less cryptic account:
April 8 Friday – In the evening at the Sala Filarmonica in Florence, Clara Clemens gave another performance of song. Sam was there and called the concert “a triumph.” Edward Caulfield in the Italian Gazette: “Miss Clemens possesses a very sympathetic contralto voce of considerable extension and of a remarkably sweet and touching quality” [ibid]. Clara would give another performance in the same venue on Apr. 15. Note: in his Apr.
April 9 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Alice Day— dinner?” [NB 44 TS 8].
April 9 Wednesday – The Kanawha sailed at 9 a.m.from Old Point Comfort, Va. to N.Y.C. Sam’s notebook: It arrived at 5 p.m. “a brisk run of 165 miles. Caught 5.45 train for home. Telegram sent at 8 yesterday took all day. / Mrs. Bunce at home” [NB 45 TS 9].
Sam’s ship log: “Sailed at 9 a.m. for New York. The yacht was believed to be a good & staunch sea-boat before—she is known to be one now.
Arrived off East 23d at 5 pm—a brisk run of 165 miles.
Caught 5.45 train for Riverdale.
April 9 Thursday – Sam’s notebook : “Gave Francis Perry Elliott my Postal-Check scheme for examination, he to return the MS in a fortnight” [NB 46 TS 14]. Note: Sam later penciled in, “Returned,” Francis P. Elliott (1861-1924), author, editor, with Harper & Bros. (1898-1900), at this time managing ed. of Home Magazine.
April 9 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “About 10 to night, awful attack—for more than an hour Livy struggled for breath. Clara was in there, Jean & I listened at the door” [NB 47 TS 9]. Note: Hill confuses the “triumph” and midnight conversation Livy had with Clara on Apr. 8 with this 10 p.m. attack on Apr. 9, and suggests a connection between this near-fatal attack and Clara’s public triumph, similar to the time in 1902 when Clara returned to Bar Harbor on the very day of another near fatal attack [82].
August 1 Thursday – Sam left the family at Lake Saranac, N.Y. and traveled to N.Y.C. arriving late in the evening [July 31 to Rogers]. He took rooms on the first floor of the Grosvenor Hotel, and complained that “the bed was hard as Maryborough” [Aug. 2 to Livy].
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
292 George VW Durquee 250.00 Saranac Cabin rent
August 1 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Elizaveta N. Malashkina.
Dear Miss Elizabeth. I sent your letter to Paris, to my friend the great pianist Gabrilowitch (if that’s the way he spells his formidable name) & he put it into German for me and returned it. We are summering far from Riverdale, & I haven’t a photograph. But when we go home in October I will get one in New York & Autograph it & send it to you. (I have made a note of it in my note-book). I’ll not forget it [MTP].
August 1 Saturday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, enclosing the July 30 from his nephew, Samuel E. Moffett, which asked for a seconding nomination for Mary E. Moffett for membership in the National Arts Club.
August 10 Saturday – The Kanawha anchored all day at St. John, New Brunswick [Aug. 11 to Livy].
Sam’s ship log: August 10, Saturday. St. John.
Reversible Falls. They have been discontinued, there not being tourists enough this season to make it pay [MTP].
August 11 Sunday – The yacht Kanawha was now headed for Digby, Nova Scotia, across the Bay of
Fundy from St. John. Sam kept a log of the trip, which reflects the high jinks among the passengers:
Sam’s ship log:
August 11 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine, Sam’s notebook: “The Queen of Roumania’s friend was here; also Howells’s two friends” [NB 45 TS 23]. Note: Mrs. E. Hartwig, and Mr. & Mrs. Brand Whitlock.
Sam also wrote a postcard to William Dean Howells.
August 12 Monday – Sam’s ship log: August 12, Monday. Yarmouth.
Fog-bound.
Trip in the launch.
Poker. No results [MTP].
August 12 Tuesday – In York Harbor, Maine Livy suffered a severe attack. Some sources cite this as a heart attack. Robert Hirst of the Mark Twain Project in an Oct. 26, 1983 letter calls it “a serious attack of asthma.” Livy also had a heart condition.
Sam’s notebook: At 7 a.m. Livy taken violently ill. Telephoned, & Dr. Lambert was here in ½ hour. She could not breathe—was likely to stifle. Also she had severe palpitation. She believed she was dying. I also believed it [NB 45 TS 23].
August 12 Wednesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to daughter Jean at Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y.