Austria 1897-99 DBD

March 26 Sunday – In Budapest, Hungary Sam and his daughters went sightseeing, leaving Livy behind at the hotel with flu-like symptoms. There were many modern features of Budapest, a city of 800,000 with a quarter of those Jews, “even more assimilated and less discriminated against than the Jews of Vienna…” Budapest boasted the first electric streetcars in Europe and the first subway of any city, which would become a model for New York’s subway system.

March 27 Monday – In Budapest, Hungary, Sam sent an aphorism to an unidentified person:“It is not easy for us to bear prosperity. (Another man’s, I mean.) / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / March 27, 1899” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Bertha von Suttner to decline an invitation (not extant) of some sort. He was booked only for one engagement in April and after that he would take a holiday for the season [MTP].

March 28 Monday – Sam’s notebook covers this day and a midnight reading at a home for English Governesses:

Monday, March 28, ’98. A splendid spring day. Charley Langdon and Jervis have reached London, & will come here about mid-April. They will tell us about Katy Leary, who was cabled for, two or three weeks ago, left us, after nearly 18 years’ service in our family. Prof. Dr. Winternitz called & examined Livy & Clara, to see if the Kaltenleutgeben baths will suit the complexion of their ailments.

March 28 Tuesday – The Clemens family’s last full day in Budapest, Hungary. On one of their days in Budapest Ferenc Kossuth (1841-1914), leader of the Independence Party in the Hungarian Parliament, called at their hotel. Dolmetsch: “Clemens had heard Lajos Kossuth [Ferenc’s father, a Hungarian hero] lecture in St. Louis in the late 1850s on one of the barnstorming tours of the United States, and like most Americans, the Clemenses venerated this great ‘Champion of Liberty’” [59].

March 29 Tuesday – The performances at Miss Virginia Bailie’s Home for English Governesses ran past midnight into the wee hours.

March 29 Wednesday – In the afternoon Sam and daughters went to a tea party with music and instruction for girls in Magyar dances. Clementina Katona Abrányi (1858 -1932), Hungarian feminist author, remembered Mark Twain at this gathering as “sensitive, reflective and introverted,” impressed by his “erudition” and progressive opinions on women’s issues. Dolmetsch: “Anna Katona, ‘the first Hungarian to discover the serious Mark Twain behind the laughter’” [59].

March 3 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, “obliged for the good news” that Rudyard Kipling was going to get well [MTP].

March 30 Wednesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, thanking him for the FE with special binding that had arrived for Princess Pauline Metternich. He also said that his niece, Annie Moffett “has those old pictures of me” and offered her address in Fredonia, N.Y. [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Dr. Rudolf Lindau:

March 30 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria Sam signed sheets for the deluxe Uniform editions which had arrived prior to leaving for Budapest. He shipped them to Frank Bliss by “the best express-firm in Vienna” [Mar. 31 to Bliss].

March 31 Thursday – The following from “From the ‘London Times’ of 1904” may or may not have happened; Burnam posits that this “flashback, the scene of which is Vienna, the time March 31, 1898, or some eight months before the tale appeared in print.” He then quotes from the story:

March 31 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to Frank Bliss, that he added to on Apr. 2. Included were notes of a biographical sketch of Clemens from which Samuel E. Moffett might write the finished article.

I want SET NO 1 of the DE LUXE edition to go to Mr. Rogers, & to be charged to me (minus agent’s commission.)

March 4 Friday – Sam also wrote to an unidentified person “Truth is stranger than Fiction; but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth is not” [MTP]. Note: was also in “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar,” FE ch. 15.

March 5 Saturday – The New York Times ran “English Praise Mark Twain,” p. 7 datelined Mar. 5, likely from the London Times:

ENGLISH PRAISE MARK TWAIN

Dr. McAlister Eulogizes his Conduct

In Paying His Webster & Co. Debts.

LONDON, March 5.—The English press has universally printed praises of the statement that Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) has paid the last of his Webster & Co. debts. Dr. McAlister, writing to The Times on the subject, says:

March 5 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to James Ross Clemens, who evidently had sent his picture (not extant).
We were very glad to get the picture, & should have been still gladder if you had brought it yourself. You look neither strong nor hearty, & the trip could have done you good. Possibly we may have the pleasure of seeing you by the end of the summer, as we are hoping to end our long exile then, & shall expect to spend a moment or two in England on our way home.

March 6 Sunday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Eduard Pötzl also in Vienna

We were very sorry you did not come in, that evening. There were no strangers present—only friends. My daughter is going to the ball tomorrow night with some friends, & if Mrs. Clemens’s health is meantime quite restored I mean to be there myself a while [MTP]. Note: the “daughter” mentioned was likely Clara who attended many such events. Dolmetsch claims Eduard was Sam’s closest Viennese friend [37].

March 7 Monday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

The copies of the letters from creditors arrived to-day—first in the list the Mount Morris release, and I was very glad to see that. Mr. Dodd clothed it in boiler-iron! All right, I shall be very glad to “let you raise questions” with the Mt. Morris when it comes to further payments. I believe you will find that there are some quite legitimate questions to raise.

March 7 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled Rudyard Kipling: “I TENDER MY SINCEREST CONDOLENCES / MARK TWAIN” [MTP]. Note: on Mar. 6 at 6:30 a.m., the Kiplings lost a daughter, Josephine (1892-1899). Rudyard had been seriously ill with inflammation of the lungs since early Feb. See Carrington, p.225-6.

March 8 Tuesday – Sam’s essay “Dueling,” written this day, was not published in his lifetime but collected in Europe and Elsewhere (1923) [AMT-1: 299-302, 707:1898a].

The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that 5,000 additional copies of More Tramps Abroad, (FE) were printed (totaling 23,000 to date in London). The official English publication date was Nov. 25, 1897

March 8 Wednesday – Sam had agreed to give a reading and speech in German at a benefit for a charity hospital in the Festsaal of the Kaufmännische, where he had given his Concordia speech on Oct. 31, 1897. He shared the platform with Auguste Wilbrandt-Baudius) .

March 9 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Francis H. Skrine, whose letter is not extant. Evidently the Skrines had offered to rent a house reasonably to the Clemenses when they returned to London.

“If we were going to abide in London again you wouldn’t have to make that offer twice, but we shall merely pass through, on our way home next autumn. If I see anyone here who wants a house I will remember & speak” [MTP].

May 1-7 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Joe Twichell, enclosing a form letter invitation in German for a committee meeting from Bertha von Suttner.

May 10 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Percy Spalding.

The telegram came last evening & was very welcome. It decided us at once. We shall reach London May 31, by way of Bremen & the steamer “Lahn” to Southampton.

May 11 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam inscribed a copy of TS to an unidentified person:

Part of my plan has been to / try to remind adults of what / they were themselves once. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain/ Vienna, May 11, 1898 [MTP: Alan C. Fox catalog, No.1, Item 146].

May 11 Thursday – In his May 13 to William Dean Howells, Sam wrote of this evening: 

Day before yesterday [May 13] the Harper came [May issue with another installment of Their Silver Wedding Journey by Howells], & in the evening I hunted it up & was lying on the sofa, & kept interrupting the family’s repose with laughter & chuckles. Finally Mrs. Clemens (very late, I thought) asked “What is it?” 

“Portraits of you.”

“Where?”

May 12 Thursday – Laurence Hutton’s book A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs (1898) likely arrived this day or the next, since Sam read some of it before retiring the following night [May 13 to Hutton].