Vienna 1897-99 Day By Day

December 5 Sunday – The full front page of the Oesterreichische Illustrirte Zeitung featured a cartoon with Mark Twain telling tales to the locals [Dolmetsch 139]. Tenney cites the article inside as “Mark Twains humoristische Schriften” [26].

December 5 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Sir John Adams (1857-1934), British Psychologist, who had recently sent his book, The Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education, etc. (1897) . Adams was on the faculty of the Free Church Training College in Glasgow, Scotland.

December 7 Tuesday – Sam attended the Burgtheater for a premiere of Gerhart Hauptmann’s Die versunkene Glocke (The Sunken Bell). One or both of his daughters may have accompanied him. Livy was still not going out in public [Dolmetsch 113-14].

December 7 Wednesday – E. Potter-Frissell’s article, “Americans in Vienna: Mark Twain,” ran in the Musical Courier. Tenney gives source as The Twainian (Feb. 1943), p.6 [29].

December 8 Wednesday – Sam and perhaps others of the family attended the opera Die Walkure, with Gustav Mahler in his first season as the Hofoperndirektor, after which he noted, “W.[agner’s] music is better than it sounds.”

Dolmetsch writes,

December 8 Thursday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he added to on Dec. 11, 12 and 13.

“It is 12 days since I handled a pen. It seems to be an attack of fatigue, & I tried to rest it off, but that was a failure, so I think it is a touch of malaria or piety or something like that & will go off of itself if let alone. I am letting it alone by lying around in my study reading & smoking all day…” [MTHHR 380].

December 9 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Livy wrote to Chatto & Windus, who evidently had asked for clarification about the little book containing “Meisterschaft” she had requested on Dec. 2. Sam thought it might be in the book of sketches containing “The £1,000,000 Bank Note,” or perhaps in The Stolen White Elephant. , If it wasn’t in any English volume, not to bother further with it [MTP].

December 9 Friday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote one sentence on a postcard to James M. Tuohy:

“No, that isn’t any matter” [MTP].

February 1 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote in German to Siegmund Schlesinger. Translation courtesy of Holger Kersten:

Dear Mr. Schlesinger:

Gut! Also werde ich Sie am 3hem Februar expect. Esfruit mich sehr dass Sie unseres heiliges Werkes schon so weit gebrasht habe. (Wiese is mein eigenes Grammatik—Komment nicht aus des Buches.)

Dear Mr. Schlesinger:

Good! So I will expect you on February 3rd. I am glad that you have advanced our holy work this far already.

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 10 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

“Dinner at the Embassy. Present, the German Ambassador; Marquis Hoyos; Nigra, Italian Minister; Paraty, Portuguese Minister; Löwenhaupt, Swedish Minister; Ghika, Roumanian Minister; Secretaries &c from the various Embassies—& ladies. 30 guests” [NB 40 TS 12]. Note: Charlemagne Tower was the American ambassador and host for this evening. Dolmetsch (p.154) gives a good bio sketch of Tower.

February 10 Friday – President William McKinley signed the peace treaty with Spain, with the U.S. paying Spain twenty million dollars for specific Spanish holdings in the Philippines. Many saw the payment as a purchase of the Philippines. The treaty turned Sam off about this being a just war and led to his staunch anti-imperialism. The treaty had been ratified by Congress on Jan. 9.

February 11 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, replying to a letter (not extant) of several weeks before.

Considering all the circumstances a 20,000 sale is certainly a little disappointing, for it is a most attractive-looking book; however, maybe the times will improve. They have been bad about long enough.

February 11 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to an unidentified man, that his “engagements already overburden me, & to add to them would not be wise” [MTP].

The Utica N.Y. Saturday Globe ran an article identifying the original of Colonel Sellers in The Gilded Age as James W. Wardner [Tenney 30: The Twainian Jan-Feb, 1957 p.4].

February 12 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied again to Arthur E. Gilbert, who evidently had queried him about the shape of the stem for the pipe he was naming after Mark Twain.

Yes, large bowl with inclined stem—don’t like straight stem. Send the one you are naming for me.

I enclose the address of a pipe-dealer—the only one my wife knows. She buys my pipes for me. This dealer tries to keep the Peterson, but is generally out of stock when I want one.

February 13 Sunday – J. Brander Dunbar wrote to Sam questioning his use of a quotation on p. 305 of More Tramps Abroad, (FE). The quotation was by Roualeyn Gordon Cumming (1820-1866), Scottish traveler and sportsman who had written many African hunting safari articles, including some to Harper’s. Dunbar (and Dunbar’s cousin) claimed to have the original quotation, and judged that Sam’s use of it “is at variance with it.” He asked what source Sam used for the quote [MTP].

February 13 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam “in reply to your letter of February 7th,” giving a list of his works which had not been given permission for translation into French: 1. More Tramps Abroad (FE); 2. JA; 3 TS,D; 4 TSA; 5 PW; 6 £ 1,000,000 Bank Note. Numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6 had already been translated into German by Robert Lutz of Stuttgart [MTP].

February 15 Tuesday – In the evening the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, resulting in war between America and Spain. The exact cause of the explosion remains a mystery.

February 15 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Charles Dudley Warner, whose letter is not extant.

Oh, I hope it isn’t a case of “never.” As nearly as we can guess, we shall get back home next fall. I recognise that the friends are passing, & that if we would see the remnant we must not delay too long. It has become a funeral procession, & if I want to get a good place in it I must apply soon.

February 17 Thursday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, enclosing J. Brander Dunbar’s letter of Feb. 13 (see entry). Sam wrote Dunbar that he copied the quotation in question from a “small book of travels & adventures,” but that he didn’t recall the title or the author. He asked Chatto to write Dunbar and refer him to the chapter and page of Roualeyn Gordon Cumming’s book (unspecified).

February 17 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Annette Hullah, a student of Theodor Leschetizky.

It was a very great pleasure you gave me in putting that book into my hands; it had ended-up a good many days comfortably & interestingly for me after my drudge of work. I thank you lots & lots.

February 18 Saturday – Hy Mayer’s article, “Unconventional Statues—V. ‘Would Make a Sphinx Laugh,’” ran in The Criterion (N.Y.), p.15: Tenney: “A full-page cartoon of MT, pipe in mouth, sitting in a lap of a laughing sphinx statue” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) 7].

Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Sam [MTP:NYPL not yet in file]. In Gilder Letter-Press Book v.4 p. 189.

February – In Vienna, Austria, Sam inscribed an aphorism on his photo (taken by “the official court photographer,” Julius Löwy) to Friedrich Eckstein:“It is one’s human environment / that makes climate. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / With kindest salutations / from S.L. Clemens / Feb. 1898” [MTP; Dolmetsch 273]. Note: See Dolmetsch 270-3, including this portrait on p. 271. Eckstein met the Clemenses when he stayed with the Charles Dudley Warner’s “in the early 1880s”.

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 19 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to H.H. Rogers, after receiving another letter (not extant) with profitable stock news: