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.
To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day
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 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 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 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 20 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook entry (see Jan. 19) shows he recalled “St. Joan of Arc” that he’d mailed to Harpers [NB 47 TS 4].
January 22 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Call on Geo de Forest Brush. / Villa il Giviello / 10 Via San Leonardo / Countess Valegoria / (See Jan. 17 / [Horiz. Line separator] / And Mrs. Roosevelt-Scovel / (Chevalier) / Villa la Terrazza / Viale Macchiavelli” [NB 47 TS 4]. Note: George de Forest Brush (1855-1941) painter; would be at Dublin, N.H. when Sam stayed there, in Oct. 1905.
January 23 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Baroness Chazal / 37 via Santa Reperata / Tuesdays / & Miss Anstey (sister)” [NB 47 TS 5].
January 24 Sunday – Edward Rimbault Dibdin wrote to Sam. “My friend William Archer visited me a few days after he called on you in Florence, a fact which he mentioned when I referred to you in connection with a subject we were discussing—the origin and early history of photographic lantern slides.” Dibdin enclosed an article by him from the Jan. 4, 1904 issue of The Amateur Photographer, “The Lantern Lecturer – His Sins and Sorrows.” He wrote he would “greatly value any hints you can give me on the subject” [MTP].
January 25 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
Mrs. Clemens says she is not “in better health & spirits in consequence” of your not writing me; that your letters haven’t any such effect. But I tell you what! she finds these last 6 weeks in bed a pretty hard trial; she got knocked back just as she was beginning to get out-doors. But Professor Grocco says she will certainly begin to make some progress soon.
January 26 Tuesday – John R. Carpenter, executor of Mollie Clemens’ estate wrote again, this time with a copy of Mollie’s bequests to Sam, and the family, as well as a list of Ma’s things sent in May 1900 to Annie Moffett Webster, which included a “rosebud toilet seat” [MTP].
Edward St. John Fairman, in Florence, sent verses to Sam, including two to Andrew Carnegie [MTP].
January 27 Wednesday – In his Feb. 17 to Duneka Sam wrote that his sketch “Sold to Satan” was mailed to Duneka on this day, according to Isabel Lyon’s notebook.
January 28 Thursday – H.A. Lorberg wrote from Portsmouth, Ohio to Sam, sending a photo for Mark Twain’s autograph [MTP].
Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote to Sam, assuring him that he never owed her a letter; that if she wanted to read him she could always get the Harper’s from her friends in NY; that she was horrified by the fire tragedy in Chicago. She also asked how to get an American book to translate into French [MTP]. Note: see Jan. 1 entry on Iroquois Theater fire, Chicago.
January 29 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to John B. Stanchfield.
Your letter [not extant] came yesterday, & I thought the Butters proposal over. As I understood it, it was this:
He will restore to me the 250 shares which he stole from me—
Provided I buy some more (at a price above its value.)
I thought it over, & decided against it; & have now (3. p.m) sent to town a cable [not extant] to that effect which should reach Elmira this morning by 10 or 11.
January 30 Saturday – The New York Times, p. BR73 ran a squib, “A New Novel from Mark Twain”:
February – Fernando Fini wrote to Sam, sometime between Feb. and Apr. 1904. The letter is three pages of Italian [MTP].
G. Herbert Thring for Society of Authors, London sent Sam a printed announcement for their dinner at the Hotel Cecil on Apr. 20 [MTP].
T.M. Parrott’s article, “Mark Twain: Made in America,” ran in Booklovers’ Magazine, p. 145-54. Tenney: “An extensive, general discussion of MT’s writing, which is characterized by a sweet sunniness, across which no shadow of impurity ever falls” [40].
February 1 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Princess de Rohan / Villa Maria 5 p.m. / Rifredi / [Horiz. Line separator] / Telephone worked at 3 p.m., the first time since it first worked, New Year’s eve / [Horiz. Line separator] / Ordered suit for damages, through Mr. Cecchi & gave him my papers” [NB 47 TS 5]. Note: Clara’s note below reveals that Jean and Clara were likely accompanying their father to the Princess’ villa.
February 2 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon was “attacked” by the Countess Masiglia’s donkey [Feb. 8 to Duneka], if it was hers. Hill writes:
Then the countess’s donkey—or at any rate a donkey which Clemens said was hers, although she denied the ownership—joined the battle. It was Miss Lyon who suffered, by her own account,
February 3 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Marchesa Alli Macarani / Lung’ Arno del Dempio, 2 / 1 st & 3d Wednesdays” [NB 47 TS 5].
Dr. Laing Gordon wrote two letters to Sam.
February 4 Thursday – Clara Clemens wrote to her friend Dorothea Gilder (daughter of Richard Watson Gilder), about a screaming confrontation with her father (the letter was postmarked Feb. 5 and refers to the episode as “yesterday.”
I have reached the very lowest stage a human being can drop. I have had an attack of what everyone in the house calls hysteria the one thing of all others I have always despised most.
February 5 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “3. The Cingalese. 3 pm” [NB 47 TS 6]. Note: the Cingalese were natives of Ceylon descended from its primitives, which makes little sense in this Florentine context; the reference is possibly to another play.
February 6 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “3d, 4th, 5th, 6th Miss Lyon very ill. / Cabled Dr. Starr at 11 a.m. / Went to bank with Smith & to Mrs. Ryerson’s. Saw Rev. Mr. Alear there. Billiards with Smith. Mrs. Lyon told Clara the donkey had been chased 2 hours—no notice given any one of the danger” [NB 47 TS 6].
George Gregory Smith wrote to Sam, offering suggestions for Isabel Lyon to sue the Countess Massigila, and for Sam to bring suit for loss of services of Miss Lyon [MTP].
February 7 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Prof. Pietro Grocco. Livy was getting worse and the good doctor was not always available. Jean Clemens copied the paragraph over in French [MTP].
February 8 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to to Frederick A. Duneka.
Yes, I prefer that you shall handle the Dog Tale in England. If Chatto inquires, I will explain. I suppose it will be sufficient to say that the Harpers proposed it & that our relations & interests are now so closely united that I naturally want to do anything which in their judgment is best for both.
February 10 Wednesday – John W. Luce for Robinson, Luce Co., Boston wrote to Sam asking his permission to use two of his aphorisms: Cauliflower, a cabbage with a college education; and Mine: a hole in the ground owned by a liar. These for a book they were about to issue, The Foolish Dictionary [MTP].