Vienna 1897-99 Day By Day

October 21 Thursday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek to his cousin James Ross Clemens.

October 22 Friday – Sam had a dispute with a cab and wrote in his notebook he would “settle it in court”  [NB 42 TS 44].

October 22 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an inscription and an aphorism to Miss Annette Hullah: “To Miss Annette Hullah from her best friend—/ Oct. 22/98. S.L. Clemens / All of us contain Music and Truth, but the most of us can’t get it out” [MTP]. Note: Miss Hullah was an English pupil of Theodor Leschetizky; she wrote a study of her teacher in 1906, Theodor Leschetizky.

October 23 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Today the barber is to begin. He is to come at sharp 9.30 a.m., every day for a month. Pay, 5 gulden for the month. Trinkgeld, 1 gulden for the month” [NB 42 TS 44].

At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote Chatto & Windus, asking them to send early copies of the new book (FE) to a list of persons:

Capt. Edgecumbe, 33 Tedworth Square

———

Others to

October 23 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote from N.Y. to Sam.

October 24 Sunday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote a postcard to Robert Lutz in Stuttgart, Germany, promising a portrait of himself [MTP: G.A. Baker & Co catalog, Mar. 30, 1939].

October 25 Monday – In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Thomas S. Frisbie in Hartford, thanking him for the now famous composite photograph of Mark Twain being hauled in a cart by a horse and cow, and driven by a black man with a black boy rider. The photo was incorporated into 60 copies of FE after the trade edition issued, along with a facsimile of this letter. Sam’s 1895 pose onboard the Warrimoo was superimposed on the cart picture.

October 27 Wednesday – In Vienna, Sam wrote to an unidentified person:

October 28 Thursday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Bettina Wirth, a local novelist and correspondent with the London Daily News. According to Dolmetsch (46), she may have helped Sam draft a speech in German he would give at Concordia Press Club on Oct. 31. Sam wrote:

You have written it superbly, & I am full of thankfulness.

October 28 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote an autographed aphorism on a notecard to an unidentified person: “Nothing is so ignorant / as a man’s left hand, / except a lady’s watch”

[MTP: Sotheby’s, NY catalog, Oct. 29, 1996].

The New York Times of Nov. 13, 1898, p. 19 ran “In The Austrian Capital” (unsigned) with a Vienna dateline of Oct. 28. The article included this passage on Mark Twain:

A MEDALLION OF MARK TWAIN

October 3 Sunday – Sam’s notebook:

Hotel Metropole, Vienna, Oct. 3, 1897. At the next round table to ours sits a princess, daughter of the Dowager Empress Friederich & granddaughter of Victoria; also the young daughter of the above and her intended, the young Prince Henry Reuss (called Henry III); whose mother & sister and Uncle (the Prince von Wernigerode) in Ilsenberg in the Harz mountains six years ago. With them a maid of honor & a couple of equerries. Good looking people. They all smoke [NB 42 TS 39].

October 3 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.Q. Russ in Lynn, Mass. who had written (not extant) about ordering a bust of Sam done by the Russian sculptress, Theresa Fedorowna Ries.

October 31 Sunday – Sam spoke at the Concordia Press Club in Vienna. Dolmetsch on the event:

October 4 Monday – At 5 p.m. at the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Sam wrote again to Eduard Pötzl.

Thank you ever so much for the books & the Feuilleton, & for the offer to show me the city: I accept the whole, gratefully. I shall be very glad to have you along when I get arrested on the bridge, because you will be able to explain the case to the police (and divide the punishment.)

October 5 Tuesday– In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Professor Heinrich Obersteiner (1847-1922), enclosing a letter from Dr. M. Allen Starr (d.1932) of New York concerning seventeen-year-old daughter Jean’s epileptic attacks. Sam disclosed she had her sixth attack a week ago (Sept. 28).

October 5 Wednesday – Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam:

October 7 Thursday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Eduard Pötzl.

The manager of this hotel has now situated us so charmingly & spaciously & economically on the next floor (Stock III), that we shall stay a month at any rate; but when the weather settles, Mrs. Clemens will wish to see the Continental & the Persian Exquisite, for we are quite willing, like the rest of the world, to better ourselves whenever we can.

October 7 Friday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to James B. Pond, asking when he saw the editor of Forum to ask about Sam’s article “About Play-Acting.” Sam had not heard back from Forum (the piece ran in the Oct. issue). He expressed hope that they would return home “just a year from now— everything promises well for that.” He also noted the passing of another old, wandering lecturer:

October 8 Friday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to John Fletcher Hurst, thanking him for his efforts to secure them housing, but daughter Clara “has reached the conclusion that she would rather live near the centre of the city.” Sam added he was “well satisfied” where he was and had “ceased to be restless” [MTP].

September 10 Saturday – Elisabeth of Bavaria (“Sisi”), Empress of Austria (1837-1898) was assassinated in Geneva by young anarchist Luigi Lucheni, who wanted to kill any royal, and had been unable to find a prince from the House of Orleans. Clemens would write on Sept. 13 to Joe Twichell of Elisabeth as, “That good and unoffending lady,” and that he was “living in the midst of world-history again.”

September 11 Sunday – Livy wrote to Susan L. Crane:

Of course all Austria is in grief over the terrible news of the assassination of he Empress. What a hideous thing it is!

September 13 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Joe Twichell [MTP].

September 14 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam replied to John Y. MacAlister in London, whose recent invitation (not extant) to speak or preside at a meeting of the Savage Club in November had arrived. Sam couldn’t go unless business also demanded, for it took him six days to travel to London since he wouldn’t travel at night. And by no means would he preside:

September 17 Saturday – Sam went to the Hotel Krantz, where he watched the funeral procession of the slain Empress Elisabeth. He later wrote “The Memorable Assassination,” not published until 1917 in What Is Man? and Other Stories by Harper & Brothers. From that piece:

September – Pall Mall Magazine issue for Sept. ran “The Real Mark Twain,” p. 28-36 by Carlyle G. Smythe, Sam’s “down under” tour manager and companion in London prior to Susy’s death [Gribben 464]. Review of Reviews (London) for this month summarized Smythe’s article and quotes passages on “His Literary Tastes” [Tenney 27].