Weggis 1897 Day By Day

July 16 Friday – Sam and his family went to Weggis, a quiet village of less than 1,400 residents about a half-hour from Lucerne by boat. “By chance” he’d been recommended to the Pension (boardinghouse) Bühlegg, which did not advertise as the other hotels and boardinghouses there did. The boardinghouse was run by Alois Dahinden

July 17 Saturday – The Clemens party was at the Hotel Union in Lucerne, making ready the move to Weggis the next day. Arrangements were made with E.H. Roth-Näf of Lucerne for a rental piano for Clara to be shipped to Weggis. It would arrive on July 19 [Locher 10]; see entry.

July 18 Sunday – The Clemens party arrived in Weggis, Switzerland, where they took residence at the Villa Bühlegg, what Dolmetsch calls, “a pension [boardinghouse] in the village of Weggis, about an hour by paddlewheel steamer up the lake from the city of Lucerne” [21].

Sam’s notebook includes a lot of description of the family’s new surroundings. In part:

July – Place unknown (but likely London): Sam sent aphorisms to Henry P. Child:

Universal brotherhood is the most precious thing we have, what there is of it.— Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

To succeed in the other trades, knowledge must be shown; in the law, the concealment of it will do.— Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / (S.L. Clemens) / July, 1897 [MTP]. Note: Ancestry.com in the U.K. has one record for Henry P. Child, b. ca. 1824 in Yorkshire.

July 19 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland a rented piano arrived for Clara to use during their stay.

Locher writes,

Clara still played the piano (though she would later be persuaded that her real strength was her voice), and her father rented an instrument for her in Lucerne. It arrived July 19th, one day after the family settled in Weggis. The transport was arranged by the firm of E.H. Roth- Naf, of Lucerne, who also supplied the bicycles, for Clemens had noted their address and he watched the delivery [Locher 10-11].

July 20 Tuesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister, apologizing for not hearing the doorbell on the night of July 7. Evidently MacAlister was going to urge Sam to take Pond’s lecture offer:

July 21 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

Took a room at the Villa Tannen as a writing-room. Price 20 francs a month.  Paid the first month in advance, & shall move in tomorrow.

———

Our landlady offered me a room in the next house below ours at 60 fr a month.

———

July 22 Thursday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote two letters to Chatto & Windus, the second not finished till July 24. In the first:

Let us drop this impossible thing. Cable Bliss for sheets.

It will not answer to try to produce the book from the original MS. It cannot be done. It is perfectly lousy with errors and foolishnesses which are not in Bliss’s copy. I can’t endure to read another chapter of it. I must go straight & telegraph you.

July 23 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland added a PS to his second July 22 to Chatto & Windus: “Send sheets to Bliss up to the MIDDLE of the book—then don’t send any more without first writing me about it” [MTP].

July 24 Saturday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam finished his second July 22 letter to Chatto & Windus. Five additional detail items (fixes on the book) were listed and the letter dated at the end, so it’s not possible to tell which were added on July 23 and which this day. Among these was this jewel:

July 25 Sunday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote again to Chatto & Windus:

“I give it up. These printers pay no attention to my punctuation. Nine-tenths of the labor & vexation put upon me by Messrs. Spothiswoode & Co consists of annihilating their ignorant & purposeless punctuation and restoring my own.”

July 26 Monday – Jean Clemens’ seventeenth birthday.

Chatto & Windus wrote a card to Sam that they’d rec’d “two repaired wine glasses with a bill for 8d, which we paid” (this note is a fragment) Sam wrote on their card to send the glasses to 23 Tedworth

[MTP]. Note: how does one “repair” a broken wine glass?

July 27 Tuesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam telegraphed Frank Bliss, evidently finally arriving at the title for his new book “Following equator” [MTP]. Note: in England, More Tramps Abroad,.

Sam also wrote to Wayne MacVeagh.

July 28 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

July 28. There was no hot weather for breakfast this morning. When we looked out over the lake we found that three great mountain forms along the range that is back from the water were draped down to their shoulders in snow. This royal ermine reveals their rank. They are much higher than Pilatus. We had not supposed that. Pilatus has not a flake on him [NB 42 TS 22].

Andrew Chatto wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in July 30 to Chatto.

July 29 Thursday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore in Hartford. The Farmington Ave. house was not to be rented; “it is withdrawn from the field.” Sam also sent congratulations for the Whitmore’s making “the rank of grand-parents,” and sent the family’s love, “Also, love to the boys of my set” [MTP].

July 30 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, whose letter of July 28 cleared up some confusion on proofs and revisions of FE, and Sam’s purpose for wanting copies.

July 31 Saturday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, questioning why postage was repaid on a foreign letter; that “Surely that must be an unnecessary expense. / …a fully-paid foreign postage ought to chase a man all over the globe without extra cost” [MTP].

September 10 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Francis H. Skrine in Perthshire, Great Britain.

The cigars have come, & they give me a noble relief & vacation from the Swiss article. Thank you ever so much. I do not know, now, what I wrote you; but whatever it was, be charitable—for there was no August day in which I was in my right mind—& there will never be an August day, perhaps, in which I shall be sane. It is our terrible month. …

….

September 11 Saturday – The New York Times passed part true, part false information on in “Mark Twain’s New Book,” p. BR1:

September 13 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam received a letter (not extant) from H.H. Rogers. He replied that Rogers’ letter “has give us a grand uplift.” The Clemens’ funds invested by Rogers were doing well, and Sam suggested Rogers keep “all the money I can make on the platform” and take the profits Rogers could make it yield, “over and above its own personality.” They both were grateful. As to the debts, he requested Rogers to keep the money “a spell longer” until there might be enough “to sweep off our debts at one wipe.”

September 15 Wednesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking that their mail be forwarded for ten days to Salzburg, poste restante, and after that in care of Thomas Cook & Son, Vienna. Livy requested a copy of Review of Reviews which contained a recent article of William Thomas Stead’s on Twain. Sam held in “grateful remembrance” all that Chatto and Spalding had done [MTP].

September 16 Thursday – Sam wrote an aphorism (from chapter 6 of PW) in the Guest Book of the Villa Bühlegg: “Please do not forget this important truth: Habit is habit—& not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stair a step at a time. / Truly yours / Mark Twain / Villa Bühlegg, Sep 16, 1897” [Locher 20].

September 17 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam replied to Samuel Rutherford Crockett’s Aug.

Sam noted that Crockett sending his letter to N.Y. “wasted a good deal of time,” which explains why it took him so long to reply.

I know Cleg, & am fond of him, & am ready to welcome him again, & Napoleon, too, when he gets on his uniform. Ten days hence I shall have an address in Vienna for the winter….

September 18 Saturday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers:

The Swiss vacation is ended & I am packing the trunks for Vienna. That is, I am superintending. …I leave all places with regret, & if there is ever to be an exception, this is not the one. We shall reach Salzburg next Wednesday 22d—no, a day or two later—& remain a week. We reach Vienna about Oct.1. Our address there for a few days will be c/o Thos. Cook & Son, while we hunt up a house to live in.

September – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Clara A. Nichols (his NB gives her address as 219 King’s Road Cheasea SW London )with a note to Chatto & Windus . He asked her to “complete the address at the bottom of this page, & mail THE PAGE to Messrs. Chatto & Windus,” adding at the bottom, “— quick”. The note to C&W directed them to put the page on one of the front fly leaves [MTP].