November 4 Thursday – Frank Bliss cabled Sam that there was a letter circulating supposedly from Sam that he had made $82,000 and paid all his debts. Bliss’ cable is not extant but referred to Sam’s following cable and letter replies.
At 10:22 a.m. at the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Bliss’s cable with one of his own: “LIE WROTE NO SUCH LETTER STILL DEEP IN DEBT / CLEMENS” [MTP].
He then wrote to Bliss that the rumor was not true and speculated what had caused it:
November 5 Friday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens.
“I believe I have nothing to report but the love of the family & their tolerable health. Clara has begun her music lessons, Jean her several studies; Livy is busied in her several ways, & I in mine. The weather is good, & we are comfortable & satisfied. / Sam” [MTP].
With her piano lessons under Theodor Leschetizky under way, Sam and Theodor became friends.
A. Hoffman writes:
November 5 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Wrote Pond the Forum check hadn’t come” [NB 40 TS 49]. Note: “About Play Acting” ran in the Oct. 1898 issue of the Forum. “
November 6 Saturday – The N.Y. Times ran “Mark Twain Still in Debt,” p.4 which included the cable Sam had sent to Bliss on Nov. 4. (The Hartford Courant ran essentially the same article on p. 12)
November 6 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to Richard Watson Gilder that he finished Nov. 13. Sam directed him to reject the MS of “My Platonic Sweetheart” if he hadn’t already. Sam felt the article was a mistake, though he’d liked it when he wrote it [MTP].
Sam also began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he finished Nov. 7.
November 7 Sunday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to William Blackwood.
Livy wrote the note and Sam signed it.
“I want to thank you most heartily for your note of the introduction [not extant] to Mme Laszowska: we have all enjoyed very much meeting her and hope that we may see a good deal of her during our sojourn in Vienna” [MTP].
November 7 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Nov. 6 to H.H. Rogers with a playful paragraph:
November 8 Monday – Eleanor V. Hutton (Mrs. Laurence Hutton) wrote to Sam, enclosing a five-page typed discussion of Helen Keller from Dr. Louis Waldstein’s book The Sub-Conscious Self. They were touched by Sam’s poem in Harpers to Susy, “In Memoriam” [MTP].
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam having rec’d his of Oct. 23 , to his “extreme comfort and delectation.” He asked that the distance between them not lead to dropping their friendship.
November 8 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a note and enclosed a MS to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, who had requested a story for the Christmas season. If Tuohy didn’t want the story sent (“The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”) would he please forward it on to H.H. Rogers, and the same with “Wapping Alice” when he received it [MTP]. Note: see Nov. 2.
November 9 Tuesday – This is the day that Sam had invited Francis H. Skrine to dinner at their Metropole hotel apartment [Nov. 3 to Skrine].
October 1 Friday – Dolmetsch connects Laura Rothmann’s note with Bailey Hurst, American Consul in Vienna, who, by Sept. 30 had located a house for the Clemens family—the Villa Silling, in suburban Döbling. This may or may not have been the same house, as Rothmann’s note is not extant and Sam’s reply says nothing of the consul’s efforts or his prior request while in Weggis. Dolmetsch writes that because of Sam’s sudden attack of gout,
October 1 Saturday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, thinking he’d been indiscreet in writing J. Henry Harper on Aug. 30 (see entry).
October 10 Sunday – An interview with Mark Twain ran in a supplement to the Vienna newspaper Fremden-Blatt. Dolmetsch calls the interview “The most significant, certainly most penetrating, of the myriad of interviews and articles appearing about Mark Twain in Viennese newspapers during the early days of his stay.” He also writes that while freedom of the press as Sam knew it back home had never existed in Austria-Hungary, “official censorship was sloppily enforced” [32].
October 10 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok, editor, Ladies’ Home Journal.
A good deal of the Autobiography is written, but I never work on it except when a reminiscence of some kind crops up in a strong way & in a manner forces me; so it is years too early yet to think of publishing— except now & then at long intervals a single chapter, maybe. I intend to do that. Someday. But it would not answer for your magazine.
October 11 Monday – The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that 1,500 additional copies of CY were printed , totaling 32,500 [Welland 236].
October 11 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to the Paul E. Wirt Fountain Pen Co., Bloomsburg, Penn. with what appears to have been a prepared testimonial:
With a single Wirt Pen I have earned the family’s living for many years. With two, I could have grown rich. / Mark Twain [MTP].
Note: See insert: 1904 advertisement claimed that Sam used the Wirt pen for 25 years, or since 1879.
October 12 Tuesday – John G. Kreer (“U.S.A.”), S. Von Armon (S.F. Cal. U.S.A.”), F. Goldschmidt, L. E. Schlemm (“N.Y. U.S.A.”), and Hugo Viewega (“Hannover”) each signed a picture postcard to Sam. The text of the card, in German, appears to be the same hand as Viewega’s. The card pictures Marktkirche – Altes Rathhaus, and Liebniz – Haus in Hannover.
October 12 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, to give them his new address at the Hotel Krantz, NeuerMarket, Vienna. “We go there tomorrow” [MTP]. Note: The family did not check into the Krantz until Oct. 14 [NB 40 TS 47].
October 13 Wednesday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper asking for a copy of JA to be “bound in a style proper to a personage of such exalted degree” for Queen Victoria’s granddaughter (daughter of Empress Frederick). The lady had been to Vienna and told Sam she’d read the book three times and given her copy to a girls’ school which she founded. Sam closed with,
October 13 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam, enclosing a note of thanks from Brander Matthews, to whom Joe had sent compliments from Sam. “Here is also a leaf from a recent issue of “ the Spectator” he thought interesting. “What wouldn’t I give for a few afternoons of our pedestrian company out on the country roads and into the autumnal woods just now beginning to turn.” He added that Sam’s article in the last Forum on play-acting was perfect.
October 14 Thursday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Livy wrote for her husband to Eduard Pötzl. Sam was “pressed for time,” so Livy wrote to say they were sorry Eduard had a cold. She added Sam would not be able to write anything for the Vienna newspapers as he had promised so much to American publishers. She accepted his invitation for her daughters to see the Carnival under his auspices [MTP]. Note: he replied the next day.
Sam’s notebook:
Servants’ fees. Oct. 14. ’97. Monthly
October 14 Friday – The Clemens family left Kaltenleutgeben, and moved into the Hotel Krantz in Vienna [NB 40 TS 47].
October 15 Friday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Eduard Pötzl that “his wife & daughters desire me to thank you cordially for the kind invitation extended to them, & to express their regret that they will not be able to take advantage of it” [MTP]. Note: this may relate to the Oct. 14 invitation for the girls to see a carnival.
October 15 Saturday – The New York Times, Oct. 30, p. 7, “Coffee Houses In Vienna…Mark Twain’s Warm Eulogy,” with dateline Oct. 15:
October 17 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz, Austria, Sam wrote to Bettina Wirth. He explained the English expression, “So-long,” and the double-standard of its application.