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]

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].

March – Metropolitan Magazine ran “An Interview with Mark Twain” by Clara Morris, the actress [Tenney 39: The Twainian (Feb. 1943)]. “Recollections of ain interview, apparently years earlier, in Wallack’s Theatre; the conversation with ‘Mr. Twain’ is reconstructed vaguely and imperfectly from memory. Illustrated with a drawing of MT by Edmund Frederick. (NYPL)” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 189]. See Insert.

April – A text of Sam’s autobiographical dictation survives made from Isabel Lyon’s notes during this month, that Paine later titled, “Henry H. Rogers,” and joined with a later manuscript (MTA 1: 250-56) [AMT

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].

June – The Critic for June, p.518-24 ran an illustrated (six photographs) article, “Mark Twain from an Italian Point of View” by Raffaele Simboli, correspondent for the Nuova Antologia. See Nov. 6, 1903 entry for excerpt. Included in the pictures was one of Jean Clemens on her white Italian saddle- horse (see insert), a gift from Livy, which would die in an August trolley accident in Lee, Mass. Also in this issue was Mark Twain’s “Letter to an Italian Editor,” p.

June 5 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence, Olivia Louise (Livy) Clemens died of heart failure at “a little past 9” in the evening. She was 58 years old [June 6 to Aldrich, Howells]. Paine gives a detailed account of the hours before Livy’s death (other reminiscences vary slightly in detail):

June 28 Tuesday – Sam later wrote of the mix-up of this morning:

In Naples at 10 a.m. sailing-day I sent my courier to the local agent to inquire if all was right. He was told the casket was on board. The ship was to sail at 4. I arrived on board about 3, & was astounded to learn there were no certificates [for the casket], & that if I could not produce them the casket must be put ashore, because without them it would not be allowed to land in America.

July – Review of Reviews (NY) published a portrait of Mark Twain, “From a photograph recently taken in Italy,” p. 122 [Tenney 39].