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 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 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Samuel E. Moffett about the biographical sketch of Mark Twain to be used for the Uniform Edition:
Your letter [not extant], with the picture of the cordial boy, has arrived, & I have five minutes in which to answer.
April 27 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to John Kendrick Bangs.
Dear Sir: Do you think you could persuade Mr. Howells to come out of that polling-booth & let me keep game a while? / Supplicatingly / Mark Twain [MTP: Bangs, Francis H. John Kendrick Bangs. (1941) p.205]. Note: see Apr. 2 to 13 to Howells.
April 28 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
“Miss Harrison—date, Apl. 28/99: To our credit, $ 51,995.29 cash. Invested in American Smelting Co., $5,000—now worth $6,300. 50 pfd & 35 com—selling at 90 & 52” [NB 40 TS 55].
April 29 Saturday – Wilfred R. Hollister and R. Harry Norman wrote to Sam of their intent to publish a book, Five Famous Missourians (published 1900 by Hudson-Kimberly Publishing, Kansas City, Mo.) Could he provide contacts who might report on “unpublished incidents” in Sam’s life? On May 13 Sam asked his nephew, Samuel E. Moffett, to answer their letter [MTP].
April 30 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus asking them to spend one pound, no more, to obtain some illustrated books including Jack and the Beanstalk which were for sale at a charity bazaar [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 3 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled James R. Clemens and Katharine Boland on their marriage: “CONGRATULATIONS KATHARINE JAMES. CLEMENS” [MTP].
Sam wrote on a calling card to Percy Spalding: “Enclosed please find the papers, duly executed” [MTP].
May 4 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Sam cabled Chatto & Windus:
PLEASE FIND MADAME BLANCHE MARCHESI THROUGH HER CONCERT AGENT ASK HERE WHERE SHE WILL SPEND THE SUMMER AND WILL SHE TEACH MY DAUGHTER TELEGRAPH ANSWER AND KEEP THIS PRIVATE = CLEMENS [MTP]. Note: see May 10.
Sam also replied to John M. Hay, at this time US Secretary of State. (Hay’s incoming not extant.)
May 5 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied Ambrose Poynter (1867-1923), who evidently had asked if he might use a story or a passage. Sam had no objections and the story and details were “set down in a book of mine—‘Old Times on the Mississippi,’” he didn’t remember the chapter.
May 7 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Bertha von Suttner. This has been misplaced at the MTP. Likely a decline to her early-May form letter invitation.
May 9 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.
“Wrote you to expect a check from New York, & to have Bliss send the July check to me (care Chatto.)” [MTP].
Percy Spalding of Chatto & Windus sent a telegram to Sam that he rec’d this evening [May 10 to Spalding].
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 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 Friday - At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to William Dean Howells that he finished on May 13. In his first paragraph at 11 a.m. he apologized for Howells not being selected to write the Introduction for Sam’s Uniform Edition and castigated Frank Bliss for his “stupid uneconomical economy” in refusing to pay Howells’ price ($1,500).
“Damn these human beings; if I had invented them I would go hide my head in a bag.”
May 13 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his May 12 letter to William Dean Howells. Livy and Theodor Leschetizky and an “English lady” chaperoned a group of 24 young people to Semmering, a lower-Austrian town famous for its skiing. Sam wrote it took three hours each way and he had little interest in going.
May 15 Monday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.
“Why hang it, my note about the shipwreck narrative [Hornet] was only a feeler. I was meaning to protect you from all possible editorial embarrassment—in case you ever have any of that” [MTP: Dawson’s Book Shop catalogs, Oct. 1934, Item 50].
May 19 Friday – Robert Buchanan wrote to Sam from London on a mourning border. He was pleased to see Sam’s handwriting after having “influenza, pneumonia and other devilries” for several months, and had a “reverent affection” for him [MTP]. Note: the hand is tiny and often illegible.
May 22 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to John Y. MacAlister, who had written an offer (not extant) for a place for the Clemenses to stay upon their arrival in London.
I thank you ever so much for your kind offer, but as we shall be in London a couple of months only, it will no doubt be handiest to stay in a hotel.
We intend to try the Prince of Wales hotel in De Vere Gardens Kensington & see how we like it.
May 23 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled Chatto & Windus: “COMING BY CALAIS DOVER SHALL REACH PRICE WALES HOTEL ABOUT FIRST JUNE PLEASE GIVE THEM NOTICE” [MTP].
Sam also wrote a short invitation for Eduard Pötzl to dine on May 24 at 8 p.m. [MTP].
Sam also wrote a one sentence reply to an unidentified person: “It is not an inconvenience to me, but a pleasure to comply” [MTP].
May 24 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Dr. James R. Clemens, sharing their plans to leave Vienna on May 26 and to stay the Prince of Wales Hotel, Kensington, upon their arrival in England. The Clemens family intended to travel by daylight trains only [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Francis H. Skrine, another who had invited the Clemenses to stay with them upon arrival in London (invitation not extant):
May 25 Thursday – Vienna, Austria. This is the day Mark Twain was ushered in to see the Emperor Franz Josef I. Dolmetsch discusses who invited whom, settling on the idea that the Emperor likely acted upon the suggestion of his royal minister of foreign affairs, Count Agenor Goluchowski von Goluchowo (1849-1921). For such a celebrity to leave Austria after meeting everyone who was anyone, yet not seen by the head man himself, was tantamount to an international snub.
May 26 Friday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Sydney G. Trist, secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society , enclosing a typed page by Dr. Stephen F. Smith , read before the National Individualist Club in 1898 about the use of curare in vivisection. Trist’s letter is not extant.