December 25 Sunday – Christmas – The New York Times, ran “Hearst’s Borrowed Shirt,” a story about Sam Clemens loaning George Hearst a “biled shirt” back in Virginia City days. Hearst, unable to find a shirt to wear to a wedding, borrowed one of Sam’s, something greatly frowned on in those days, but was exposed after a fight. Just why the Times ran this story on Christmas is anyone’s guess. Roughing It, p. 416 (Chapter LVII): “For those people hated aristocrats.

December 26 Monday – Louisa Wohl wrote to Sam; the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Dec. 28 to Gilder; see entry [MTP].

December 27 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote and cabled H.H. Rogers.

December 28 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.

December 29 Thursday – Sam wrote on Dec. 30 of Livy’s financial calculations:

December 30 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria Sam began a letter to William Dean Howells that he added a PS to on Jan. 3, 1899.

Uniform Edition de luxe – $ 10,000 Tumbles In – “Splendid Bird, Set Her Again” Politics of Peace – Hadleyburg – Making Fun of Mrs. Eddy Budapest Reading – Karl Kraus & Critics – Twain in Top Ten– Authorized Bio Sketch – “Concerning the Jews”– Vienna Farewell – Kellgren’s “System” Becomes Osteopathy Club Dinners Galore – Sanna for the Damned – Boer War Not Boring – London Hermits

January – Edwin Wildman’s article “Mark Twain’s Pets,” ran in St. Nicholas Magazine, p.185-8. Tenney: “Describes a visit to MT’s study at Elmira, New York, by E.M. Van Aken, to take pictures of his cats. Two photographs are here reproduced, together with one of the ‘Quarry Farm’ house, and there are engravings of the outside of MT’s octagonal study (here called the ‘Pilot House’; it is covered with vines) and of MT at work inside (‘Drawn from a photograph by E.M. Van Aken’).

January 1 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam’s notebook:

NEW-YEAR, 1899. Note from Schelsinger [not extant], asking another month’s delay. … He would like me to promise the use of my name in advance, I think, & unconditionally.

It will be a marvel if he produces a play which I can work into a shape which will satisfy me, after all his delays. I shan’t allow my name to be used in connection with it unless it shall in all ways warrant the risk [NB 40 TS 52-3].

January 3 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria Sam added a PS to his Dec. 30, 1898 letter to William Dean Howells.

P.S. Jan. 3. I forgot to say, don’t reveal to any one that I have turned the corner & am prospering. It might get into the papers; & if there is one thing that is more fraught with annoyance than the repute of being in financial straits, it is the repute of being the other way.

January 5 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote or cabled to Andrew Chatto about the adventures of de Rougemont [MTP]. Note: See Sept. 26, 1898 on Louis de Rougemont.

Sam wrote “Diplomatic Pay and Clothes” datelined “Vienna, January 5.”

January 6 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, suggesting omitting “Republican” from “Republican Statemanship,” for a new Century Dictionary that Gilder and “other philologists” were “engaged in constructing” [MTP].

January 9 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a short note and a letter to William T. Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, London:

“The Czar is ready to disarm. I am ready to disarm. Collect the others; it should not be much of a task now” [MTP: Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain’s Letters, p.291; MTB 1072].

January 10 Tuesday – A PS excerpt from “Diplomatic Pay and Clothes,” in the March Forum ran in the N.Y. Times, and was published on Mar. 26, 1899, p.23, under “Current Literature.”

Mark Twain Wants $75,000.

From Mark Twain, in the Forum.

January 13 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Eva Nansen; Livy added a note to Dr. Fridtjof Nansen. Sam thanked her for the photographs and sentiments and was sorry he and the family were out when the Nansen’s messenger delivered them. Livy added a paragraph to Dr. Nansen:

January 14 Saturday – The New York Times, on Jan. 15, ran on p.7, “Mark Twain Writes for Stead.”

LONDON, Jan 14.—Mr. William T. Stead’s new paper, intended to be the mouthpiece of his disarmament campaign, and entitled War Against War, made its appearance to-day. It is not a very striking production, its chief feature being communications from sympathizers, including some American public men.

January 21 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled a response to a cable this day from H.H. Rogers. Rogers: “PROFIT $16,000.” Sam: “SPLENDID BIRD, SET HER AGAIN” [MTHHR 386n1 mentions; NB 40 TS 53].

January 24 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

January 26 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam responded in writing to Mr. C.S. Mason in Toledo, Ohio (Mason’s letter not extant). “Dear Sir— / The Sellers in the book is a fictitious name, necessarily. / Ys Truly / SL Clemens” [MTP].

January 31 Tuesday – Livy also wrote a short letter to Susan L. Crane complaining of “rheumatism or gout in the back,” that nothing seemed to help. She was going to try Sam’s gout remedy [MTP]. She added to the letter on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.

January, late – Sometime in late January, Sam and Livy wrote to Pamela A. Moffett, who then wrote her son, Samuel Moffett:

February – Sometime during this month Sam wrote Richard Watson Gilder, directing him to take the Hornet article, name the price himself, and send the check to Whitmore [MTP].

February 1 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

“Letter received from Mr. Rogers (dated Dec. 31) [not extant]—says we now have about $43,000 in his hands.

Wrote Bliss to send the January copyright to him ($4,500.) & McClures $1,000” [NB 40 TS 53].

Livy added to her Jan. 31 to Susan L. Crane: “Nearly my wedding day. Last night I had the same sort of night, simply wretched” [MTP]. Note: she added another segment on Feb. 2.

February 2 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.

Yes, I like the photogravure of our house; I have never seen a finer and more vivid piece of work. There’s as much as 100,000 words for the volume of Sketches—say half as much more as Huck Finn or

February 4 Saturday – Phillipine guerillas under Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964) fired on American troops at Manila. This began a rebellion against US rule of the Phillipines that lasted until Aguinaldo was captured on Mar. 23, 1901 by General Frederick Funston. Sam would write a lot about the actions in the Phillipines.

February 7 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus.