April 1 Friday – An unidentified person wrote in Polish to “The Great American Humorist”; only the envelope survives [MTP].
Fatout lists an unidentified dinner where Sam gave four speeches [MT Speaking 665]. Note: Fatout gives no particulars and none were found.
April 1 Saturday – In Vienna at an unspecified banquet, Sam made four speeches [Apr. 5 to Howells].
April 10 Sunday – Sam inscribed a copy of FE to James H. Scott: Mr. James H. Scott / with the
compliments & respects of / The Author. / Good friends, good books & a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Vienna, Apl. 10, 1898 [MTP].
April 10 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to ask Chatto & Windus to send the 2-shilling, 6-pence edition of Omar Khayam [MTP].
April 11 Monday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Eupemia A. Suverkrop, an editor of American Machinist (New York; published continuously since 1877).
April 11 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria Sam signed a notice in German to Chatto Windus. The notice is by another hand, perhaps that of an attorney, unnamed.
April 12 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote two letters to George Barrow—however at the top is written: “(Disapproved by Mrs. C. & not sent).” Sam reacted to Barrow expecting interest on Sam’s debt to him, and referred him to H.H. Rogers [MTP]. For the full text of these unsent letters to Barrow, see MTHHR 341n1. Also see next to Rogers.
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers
April 12 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam added to his Apr. 2, 5, 6 letter to William Dean Howells.
April 13 Thursday– At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Apr. 2, 5, 6, and 12 letter to William Dean Howells.
“13th I have been to the Knustausstelling [Art Exhibit] with Mrs. Clemens. The office of art seems to be, to grovel in the dirt before Emperors & this & that & the other damned breed of priests./ Yrs Ever / Mark” [MTP].
April 15 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Arthur E. Gilbert, the pipe dealer in London, suggesting wording for his testimonial on what Gilbert wanted to call the “Mark Twain pipe.” Sam offered “It is the sweetest & cleanest of all pipes,” and then confessed under “Private” that “For weeks it was a terrible tongue-biter,” but after breaking it in he’d be in “bad shape indeed” should he lose it.
April 15 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, concerning the Apr. 3 letter of Charles R. Hall (enclosed):
April 16 Saturday – Literary Digest “ran a brief anonymous item noting the unanimous praise by the British press for MT’s paying off the last of the Webster and Company debts” [Tenney 28]
April 18 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Annette Hullah, and enclosed an inscribed photograph by Alfred Ellis: “To Annette Hullah with my kindest regards.” The inscription is on a tiny margin at the bottom of the photo, and does not include his signature.
April – Overland Monthly p.378-80 ran an anonymous review, Following the Equator in Zigzag: Tenney: “A review, using abundant quotation to illustrate an estimate of Following the Equator as ‘a happy and interesting jumble…a traveler’s miscellany’” [27]. Note: this and many other reviews will be found in Budd’s 1999 Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews.
April 19 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Mr. Dagobert Wlaschim, the letter not extant but referred to and quoted in the following notebook entry for this day:
Apl. 19, ’98. Concerning my portrait on post-cards I have to-day written to Mr. Dagobert Wlaschim the following—a definite promise, yet on which binds me to nothing more than the withholding of authorization— a promise easy to keep:
April 19 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper to recommend a Baroness for society correspondent of Harper’s Bazaar and of particulars for making an appointment [MTP: Paraphrase: American Art Assoc-Anderson Galleries catalogs; Apr 4, 1934, Item 129]. Note: full text, 250 words, not available.
April 2 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century Co., who had recently questioned American Publishing Co. giving McClure’s a segment of FE (without Sam’s knowledge) while refusing it to the Century.
April 2 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Mar. 31 to Frank Bliss, noting he had finished signing the pages for the deluxe Uniform edition and would express them the following day (Apr. 3). He enclosed a letter from a man in Iowa which he thought Bliss should answer as it was out of Sam’s line.
April 20 Wednesday – Charles J. Langdon and son Jervis Langdon II left Vienna after a nine-day visit with the Clemens family [Apr. 21 to Rogers].
In the evening Ludwig Kleinberg and his partner (likely Dr. Alfred Winternitz) visited the hotel and told Sam about a machine that made “blankets and other cloth out of peat—peat-fibre mixed with cotton—or with wool if you want better goods” [Apr. 21 to Rogers].
April 20 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Wayne MacVeagh (whose letter is not extant).
“I am glad to be able to answer one at least of those questions definitely: that the family are in very good health & furnishing no support to repairers, except of course the dentists—their ministrations never cease in anybody’s family, I suppose.”
April 21 Thursday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to H.H. Rogers’ letter (not extant) of American marketplace facts for the Raster textile-designing machine.
You have furnished me facts which are intelligible—and worth a good deal more than foggy guesses gotten out of a census-report 18 years old.
April 22 Friday – The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that between Apr. 22, 1898 and June 6, 1906, six printings totaling 11,000 additional copies of HF were printed , totaling 43,500 [Welland 236].
April 22 Saturday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.
I am very glad to hear that the Autograph Edition is getting such a fine start.
….
I return that article. It is pure rubbish, & should be disinfected & used in the closet.
I wouldn’t put away any of my old-time stuff into a book which isn’t already in books. Not a line of it is worth preserving. It should be allowed to remain dead [MTP].
April 24 Monday – Poultney Bigelow wrote a postcard from Vichy, France to Sam.
Just arrived at this city of stinking springs & am vigorously flushing my guts every day while waiting for a water melon, which I hear, ripen in June at Murcia in Spain. I am now on my 12th doctor & he says I must stay here at least one month. We have left the 3 children at a French boarding school near Dinard on the Brittany coast…& we both propose to hire a villa there for 6 mos. & revel in animal delights [MTP].
April 25 Monday – The Salt Lake City Tribune ran “Dan De Quille and Mark Twain. Reminiscences by an Old Associate Editor of Virginia City, Nevada” (C.A.V. Putnam) in honor of Dan De Quille, who died on Mar. 16.
Spain declared war on the United States. The US noted that the two countries had in effect been at war since Apr. 20. Tensions ran high since the mysterious explosion of the Battleship Maine on Feb. 15.