December 1 Tuesday – Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam asking where they should send the vouchers due him and Livy [MTHHR 548n3]. At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam cabled to Harper & Brothers: “Make all payments to Rogers / Clemens” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to John Y. MacAlister in London.
December 10 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Bad head-cold—from exposure at Motts. Woke up with it at 3 a.m. Was treated by Helmer (osteopath) at 3 this afternoon. Cold all gone before 11 to-night. No physician could do that wonderful thing” [NB 43 TS 31]. Note: Motts also mentioned for Dec. 18 dinner; NB entry.
Ella T. Smith wrote to Sam about this day, her letter not extant but referred to in his reply of Jan. 1, 1901 [MTP].
December 10 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Harper & Brothers. The note is not extant but is referred to in Harper’s Dec. 12 response:
December 10 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. about this day, Sam wrote a note to Livy enclosing Henry Van Dyke’s “nice note” of Dec. 8.
December 10 Thursday – James Jourdan, President Brooklyn Union Gas sent Sam notices of stockholders’ meetings. There are two notices, one dated Dec. 14 [MTP].
Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam that “all applicants” must be referred first to them, and that the contracts with him “give them authority over everything you have published, also over everything you may write (for use in print)” [MTP].
Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam.
December 11 Tuesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Augustus T. Gurlitz, N.Y. Attorney for Kipling at this time.
December 11 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote two sentences to Daniel Carter Beard:
“Good—send Mr. Crosby along. I’ll see him any morning between 10.30 & 12, with pleasure” [MTP].
December 11 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote one sentence to Connecticut Magazine. “It is a fine and great magazine and I feel a strong interest in it, and a strong pride as well” [MTP].
Sam also replied to Frederick W. Peabody’s Dec. 10.
I shall not be through with what I have to say in the N. A. Review about Mrs. Eddy & Xn Science until the April number.
Do you mean to tell me that my private letters are not safe in your hands?
December 11 Friday – In Florence, George Gregory Smith wrote to his mother of this day at his home:
“Friday we had quite a gathering. Mark Twain, Labouchere (Mr & Mrs) Mrs McCalmont & a lot of others.” Smith praised Sam for his lack of pretense and was pleased that Sam had taken “a great liking to us & we see a lot of him.” He confided that Livy was “very very ill,” and that Clara, “who is 19 & very sweet & pretty slight & graceful & dark” [Orth 31].
December 12 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied to Daniel Carter Beard’s Dec. 10.
You are right—it is never too late to say the kindly word, when one can say it as heartily & cheeringly as you do. You have done great work in great causes, & I have walked by your side. We have our reward: the consciousness that your child (whom God preserve!) & my children will not be ashamed of us when we pass on.
Peace & prosperity be with you & yours always, Dan Beard. And my love therewith [MTP].
December 12 Wednesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Edmund Clarence Stedman.
“It is most kind of President Dodge, but I am most likely to stay at home, for I am dead, dead, dead tired of talking & feeding. I have crept out of all my engagements except one tonight & one in the middle of January…” [MTP].
December 12 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote two notes to H.H. Rogers. The first concerned Rockefeller’s Dec. 10 invitation to read or speak on Dec. 27:
I found a note from Mr. Rockefeller when I got back home yesterday, and I answered accepting his invitation and saying I would read or talk, whichever he might prefer—I named “Two Little Tales” as the reading.
December 12 Saturday – William Deason for Thomas Cook & Son, Florence wrote to Sam, that they rec’d his letter of Dec. 11 and were “most anxious to recover the amount which is due you” [MTP].
December 13 Thursday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote one line on a postcard to Augustus T. Gurlitz, a N.Y. attorney he considered hiring: “What would it cost?—definitely” [MTP]. Note: Sam wanted to bring suit against Chicago publisher Butler Brothers for issuing an unauthorized edition of the “Library of Wit and Humor by Mark Twain.”
Sam’s notebook: “Aldrich, Boston?” [NB 43 TS 31].
December 13 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Go Princeton. See Hutton. Returned in evening” [NB 44 TS 19].
In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam added a note to his second Dec. 12 to Rogers: “Sent no proxy. SLC. Riverdale, Dec. 13/01” [MTHHR 477n1].
December 13 Saturday – Harper’s Weekly, p. 1943 -4 ran William Dean Howells, et al article, “In Honor of Mark Twain: Verses to be read at a Dinner Celebrating his Sixty -seventh Birthday. Included Howells’ “A Double- Barrelled Sonnet to Mark Twain (written to be heard, not read)”; John Kendrick Bangs, “Mark Twain (A Post-prandial Obituary)”; Henry Van Dyke, “A Toast to Mark Twain!” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.8].
December 14 Friday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Irving Bacheller.
December 14 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Dinner, Hutchinson” [NB 44 TS 19].
In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied to Harper’s Dec. 14 by writing on it:
“Dec. 14. In talk with the Major, he thought that only the Detective Story should be in the book—thought it could be filled out to $1.50 bulk with marginal drawings” [MTP].
December 14 Sunday – In N.Y.C. William Dean Howells wrote a short note to Sam.
Stoddard’s story was rubbish of the sort that would appeal to a love-sick chambermaid; and I had to send it back to him. But I am ready to join you in another move on Harriot[t]. / Sorry to have been in Ohio when you came, the other day [MTHL 2: 754].
December 14 Monday – James Jourdan for Brooklyn Union Gas Co. sent Sam a form letter announcing a stockholders’ meeting for Dec. 30, at noon in the company office, Brooklyn [MTP].
December 15 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “N.E. Dinner?” [NB 43 TS 31].
Harper’s Weekly featured a cover portrait of Mark Twain by the renowned English artist William Nicholson. No text was given. See insert.
December 15 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Dr. Rice, dinner” [NB 44 TS 19]. Note: Dr. Clarence Rice.
December 15 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William D. McCrackan: “I thank you ever so much for your N. A. Review articles. I read them last night, with admiration & with profit” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Frederick W. Peabody, Boston attorney and outspoken critic of Christian Science.
December 15 Tuesday – Sam wrote a MS of ten pages, “Major General Wood, M.D.,” and a TS of five pages, typed and revised before Dec. 28. Not published until 1992 in Zwick [AMT-1: 707].
December 16 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Two tickets in card-case for Xn Science lecture by ex-Judge Clarkson (Omaha) Carnegie Hall 3 p.m.” [NB 43 TS 31]. Note: Joseph Clarkson gave a lecture to a packed hall in support of Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science, which he claimed had performed two million cases of healing [NY Times, Dec. 17, p. 7].