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 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 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister in Leysin, Switzerland.
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 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].
April 10 Sunday – In Florence, Janet D. Ross wrote to advise Sam, that she was checking out villas for him but had not yet found a suitable one [MTP].
April 11 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Mrs. Brocklebank—lunch—” [NB 47 TS 9].
Sam wrote to Harper & Brothers, London office, letter not extant but referred to in Harpers’ Apr. 14 reply; evidently, from the reply, Sam requested copies of “The Dictionary of Dates,” and Howells’ Stops of Various Quills (1895).
April 12 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Margaret S. Graham.
It is a charming letter, & comes just in time to do a kind of miracle: that is, add a grace to this April morning, a thing difficult to the verge of impossibility; for the foliage & the flowers are looking their densest richest & vividest in the flooding sunshine, & far-away Florence, glinting vaguely through her enchanted veil, is a dream!
April 13 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Princess De Rohan” [NB 47 TS 9].
April 14 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto, William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943), visited Sam for about an hour, noting that Sam “was 68 years old, but looked older….During this hour’s interview, Mark smoked three cigars; there was a constant twitching in his right cheek and his right eye seemed inflamed” [Hill 83]. Notes: Phelps was the “unrepentant duck-killer,” who as a boy killed five of Sam’s white ducks at the Farmington ave. house. (no relation to William Walter Phelps, American Minister to Germany).
April 15 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “The Judge comes at 3 p.m. / Or is it the 16th? / [Horiz. Line separator] / Canon at 1. p.m” [NB 47 TS 9].
Dorothy Williams wrote from Phila. to Sam, enclosing his horoscope; she asked for his photograph [MTP]. Note: the horoscope is not extant.
April 16 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “3 p.m. Vecchio / Be at via Strozzi 2 at 2.50” [NB 47 TS 9].
The New York Times, p. BR260, ran a short review of Mark Twain’s latest book:
The Humorists.
April 17 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “10 a.m. Sig. Gelli—portrait-photos. / [Horiz. Line separator] / Only one detail of God’s character is truthfully stated in the Bible: to Him a thouasand years are as a day. Look at the Crusades; look at the conversion of the world; look at any of His large undertakings—all are failures, for lack of time. Any really active person can do in a day what it takes him a thousand years to accomplish. He never succeeded in capturing His Sepulchre at all—yet He spent time enough on it to capture a whole cemetery” [NB 47 TS 9-10].
April 18 Monday – Dr. Moses Allen Starr wrote from NYC to Sam. “While I think an elevation much above 2000 ft—say 2500-3000 would possibly increase Mrs C’s difficulty of breathing, I doubt if 2000 will do any harm. So I wired you this morning on receipt of yours ‘Yes’ in reply to your question “Is it safe?” He also suggested some medicine for Livy if she was better [MTP].
April 19 Tuesday – In London William Dean Howells wrote to Sam that he’d heard from the young (40) Dr. John Crawford, whom Howells had given a letter of introduction to Sam. Crawford had not shown in Florence, this letter suggests a lost letter from Clemens. Howells then sympathized with his old friend’s struggles:
April 20 Wednesday – Livy took a turn for the worse and Sam excluded himself and Clara from entering her room; neither were letters nor papers allowed inside. Only Katy Leary, who slept in Livy’s room at night, and the doctors were allowed entrance [Apr. 25 to MacAlister]. Note: Livy would survive but six weeks more.
Sam’s notebook: “Gelli—10 a.m.” [NB 47 TS 10]. Note: sitting for his portrait.
April 21 Thursday – Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin sent a telegram from Rome to Dr. Kirch:
“BILLIOUS ATTACK OVER WILL TRY TO COME TOMORROW WILL TELEGRAPH AGAIN=BALDWIN” [MTP].
Marguerite Flower wrote to Sam from Salem, Ore. School of the Blind. She was 13 and liked P&P, and asked “won’t you write another book like it?” [MTP].
Francesco D. Grandi wrote a nearly illegible letter in Italian? to Sam [MTP].
April 22 Friday – In New York H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, “confused” as to whether he’d written or not. He complained about the “great cotillion over the Boston case,” with a lot of men “turning state’s evidence” against him, the same men who had made money by following him. His mother in law was in a low state of health. He was getting his yacht ready for June races.
April 23 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Cs [Countess] Montjoie / tea” [NB 47 TS 10]. Note: Alice Ann Lymer Monck. See Mar. 26 entry.
April 25 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister at the Sanitarium Grand Hotel in Leysin, Switzerland.
We had an awful fright 5 nights ago, & at once I put on the rigid rules of a year ago & clinched them tight, in spite of Mrs. Clemens’s pleadings & protestations. We kissed her Aufwiedersehen, & since then Jean
April 26 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Mr. Travers Cox / 28 Viali Principe Amadeo / 4-6. Bishop of Ohio / [Horiz. Line separator] / Prof. Gelli 10 a m” [NB 47 TS 10]. Note: Sam attended a reception of Mrs. Travers Cox, as attested by this entry and the Apr. 28 from Keene; see entry. Another sitting for Gelli.
April 27 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “The Gelli portrait for the St. Louis Fair finished. It hasn’t a defect. /[Horiz. Line separator] / Write Col. Harvey” [NB 47 TS 10]. Note: see insert of portrait under Mar. 11.
Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam, enclosing a financial statement for PW play for week ending mar 12, and check for $36.80 [MTP].
April 28 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Livy likes the [Gelli] portrait. It spent the day in her room. It is mine for sitting for it, therefore it is hers. She requires that it be brought back here from St. Louis. It will be as she desires” [NB 47 TS 10].
Francis B. Keene of the US Consular Service, Florence, wrote to Sam.
April 29 Friday – Thomas Wardle wrote to Sam.
After my very pleasant call on you I came away north and then by the Riviera I reached home. I have thought about that Whiskey cure of yours and it seems to me pure whiskey is a necessity in such a case, and I have hunted out three bottles of the best produced in Scotland which will be sent to you from that country by the Merchants, if not by parcel post, carriage paid [MTP]. Note: “The Whiskey Cure” relates to a 24-page MS
May – Bookman (NY), p. 235-6, ran Harry Thurston Peck’s article, “Mark Twain at Ebb Tide.” Tenney: “A review of Extracts from Adam’s Diary as showing ‘just how far a man who was once a great humorist can fall. We thought when we read A Double-Barrelled Detective Story that Mark Twain could do no worse. But we were wrong’” [40].
Harper’s Weekly ran an interview with Mark Twain by J. M’Arthur [Tenney 39: Henderson (1911) p. 223].