December 18 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam finished his Dec.16 to H.H. Rogers.
To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day
December 19 Saturday – Harper’s Weekly, ran an anonymous article, “Mark Twain’s Audiences,” p. 2071. Tenney: “A brief, undocumented anecdote of MT’s reply to a question of what audiences make the most responsive and sympathetic listeners: ‘college men and convicts.’ Also, p. 2030, photograph of MT, without comment, in ‘A Group of Our Harper Authors and Artists’” [38].
Sam’s notebook: “1 p.m. Mrs. Birch. / Villa Negri / Villa Bolognesi” [NB 46 TS 31].
December 20 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
December 21 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto Sam wrote to George Gregory Smith.
Thursday is our day, & I shall be unqualifiedly glad to welcome Mr. Ford, & thereto any other person ennobled by your accolade.
It was almost cruel that Mrs. Clemens should have been denied the sight of you & Mrs. Smith; she is not reconciled yet, altogether. )
December 22 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “ What is so rare as a day in June? That is this day, exactly. Brilliant sun, balmy air, heavy with the odor of roses” [: NB 46 TS 31; Gribben 427 in part]. Note: refers to a line from James Russell Lowell’s “Prelude” to The Vision of Sir Launfal (1861).
Joseph Blouin, builder, billed Sam $306.66 for additional repairs to the Tarrytown house; paid Jan. 15, 1904 [1903 Financials file MTP].
December 23 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook : “a perfect stranger called & I responded, thinking it was another Wade of 25 years ago. Knocked 2 hours out of my day’s work, for I could not resume. This is paying $250 cash for a tiresome stranger’s society. Too high” [NB 46 TS 31].
December 24 Thursday – Mr. & Mrs. George Gregory Smith visited the Clemens family [Orth 31].
December 25 Friday, Christmas – Sam went to the George Gregory Smith’s for a quiet lunch, and stayed most of the afternoon. “He is to meet Dr. Grazzini here” [Orth 31-2; Smith to sister].
Miss U. Fischer wrote from Milan, Italy to Sam. Only the envelope survives [MTP].
Livy gave Sam a copy of Charles Godfrey Leland’s Legends of Florence; Collected from the People and Re-Told by … (Hans Breitmann). Sam inscribed the book:
December 28 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to George B. Harvey.
If Wood is confirmed, this is a pæan of drunken joy; if it’s the other way, it is a wail, a lament; in either case it is a note of contempt for the President & his catamite.
You may find it injudicious to print it. You are on the spot & will know. In case of non-printing, please return it to me, for there might come a time during election-year when the atmosphere might change & in your judgment make it available.
December 30 Wednesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
Happy New Years to you all—last shout for this year!
Before I forget it. You & the Colonel will naturally be on the lookout for first-class short-story talent— therefore, seek out the man that wrote the police-story (Irish & New York) in the Evening Post of Dec. 14, & secure him. If that story isn’t well told, tell me so & I will take my medicine.
December 31 Thursday – Josephine C. Wheeler (Mrs. Henry M. Wheeler) wrote to Sam, wishing his family a happy New Year, and asking if she might call. She wrote that she knew Mrs. Moffett and Mrs Webster (his sister and niece) of Fredonia, NY [MTP]. Note: Sam instructed on the env. “Please say our day is Thursday.”
C.H. Curtiss & Co., Hardware, Plumbing & Tinning billed Clemens $73.52; paid on Jan. 15, 1904 [1903 Financials file MTP].
Sour Weather in Florence – Roosevelt: “What he wants, he takes”– Butters a Fraud Mollie Clemens Dies – Dictating Autobio. – Pigs & Enunciator Wars – Donkey Attack Clara Hysterics – Livy, a Shadow – Charity Reading – Gelli’s Portrait
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 1 Friday – Sam read about a Chicago fire disaster in the NY Evening Post [Gribben 503; fragment MTP].
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].
January 3 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Villa Guicciardina / a Montughi” [NB 47 TS 2]. Note: Sam was already looking about Florence for a more suitable villa and this was likely one consideration. Following these two lines of entry was a list of items about the Villa that go down the page. Here they are listed, separated by commas to save space: “View, Bedrooms, Baths, W.C.’s, Sun-exposures, Exits, Water, Flowers, Stoves, Fireplaces, Dogs, Other noises, Stabling, Pigs rams chickens, Cows—milk” [TS 2-3].
January, on or before Jan 4. – Edward B. Caulfield of the Italian Gazette and Florence Gazette wrote to Sam.
I believed you at once the other day, but I had not all my wits about me as I was thinking what a nasty bit I had just escaped.
I wanted to turn the tables thoroughly on the man who tried to do me that evil turn and so it was that I selfishly asked you to help me to that end: you were quite right to refuse.
January 5 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
I have finished the “Italian With Grammar,” & have cut it down a good deal. I believe it will now split in two in the middle conveniently & go into 2 numbers of the Weekly without taking up too much room. Jean will typewrite it soon, & send it along.
January 6 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Villa di Quarto / Calamity House would be a better name” [NB 47 TS 4].
Edward B. Caulfield of the Italian Gazette wrote to Sam, enclosing his card, and revealing the name of the “young idiot” who had sent verses signed “M.T.”—it was H. Langan Stuart. “He is a disgusting young brute who when faced with the affair gave me his ‘word of honour’ twice that he knew nothing of it” [MTP].
January 7 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
I have letters from England asking that the Dog’s Tale be issued in swell form & price & kept on view all the time & used as a present in holiday-time & out of it. One man (of manifestly fine judgement) says “It is already a classic, & will remain so. It stands at the head of the literature of its kind.”
January 8 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
I see by the telegram in the “Nationale” that Joan of Arc was beatified day before yesterday, & that the Holy Father replied in person to the eulogy delivered by the Archbishop of Paris.
It may be that this event will presently start up a run of magazining concerning Joan. I being her American literary representative, & author of the first historical story in our late long list of that kind
January 10 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam finished his Jan. 7 to Joe Twichell.
P. S. 3 days later.
Livy is as remarkable as ever. The I wrote you—that night, I mean—she had a bitter attack of gout or rheumatism occupying the whole left arm from shoulder to fingers, accompanied by fever. The pains racked her 50 or 60 hours; they have departed, now—and already she is planning a trip to Egypt next fall, and a winter’s sojourn there! This is life in her yet.
January 11 Monday – In New York, Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam with payment amounts from Harpers for his financial account, which totaled $10,346.43 [MTHHR 550-1].
January 12 Tuesday – In New York, H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam
I have your favor of 30th ult. Miss Harrison is sending you statements of accounts showing receipts from Harper, which I trust will be satisfactory. The explanations will go forward with her letter, so I need not refer to them here. …
I wish I could follow out your suggestion in regard to going to Italy. I am about fagged out again, having been at work since October. My Boston suit is not yet settled, and I go on the rack again on Saturday next.
January 14 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam dictated a note in Italian to daughter Clara for Rev. Raffaello Stiattesi asking his aid in getting the Countess Massiglia to keep her dog quiet, as it was disturbing Livy’s sleep. He offered 100 lire to the church for their good offices [MTP: Superior Auction Galleries catalog, Nov. 6, 1993, Item 144].