April 1 Saturday– Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook:
Apl. 1. A wild wind & a wild sea yesterday afternoon. Several falls, but nobody hurt. Went to bed at 8 & slept till 8. Still a heavy sea this morning [NB 33 TS 5].
April 10 Monday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.
April 11 Tuesday – Sam was still somewhat delayed in New York, but wrote William Dean Howells from the Hotel Glenham that he was leaving for Chicago at 10 a.m. the next morning (Apr. 12), to be gone “some days, possibly a week” and would look in on him when he returned.
April 12 Wednesday – Sam and Frederick J. Hall left New York at 10 a.m. bound for Chicago to check on developments for the Paige typesetter [Apr. 11 to Howells].
John Brisben Walker (1847-1931), since 1889 owner of Cosmopolitan, wrote to Sam with an offer:
April 13 Thursday – Sam and Frederick J. Hall arrived in Chicago sometime in the early afternoon. They took adjoining rooms in the Great Northern Hotel [Apr. 14 to Underhill]. In a letter to Susan Crane, Apr. 23, he claimed to have been sick since this day. Kaplan writes that Sam spent,
April 14 Friday – At the Great Northern Hotel in Chicago, Sam wrote his Florence neighbor, Janet D. Ross, letting her know he’d asked agriculture Secretary J. Sterling Morton for some watermelon seeds, “and told him I had a key to your garden and that you kept no dog I was afraid of.” Sam enclosed Morton’s favorable response of Apr. 11, which he would have received in N.Y.
April 15 Saturday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry. With Sam laid up, exploration of the Paige typesetter manufacturing fell to Frederick J. Hall, who undoubtedly reported back to Sam that the machine was again disassembled.
At 6:30 p.m. Sam wrote to Joseph Medill, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, on pictorial Great Northern Hotel stationery:
My Dear Mr. Medill —
April 16 Sunday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.
In Florence, Livy wrote to him:
You did not tell me anything about sending an article or articles to the Cosmopolitan. Why did you do that? I should greatly prefer appearing in the Century or Harpers. What made you do it?…
April 17 Monday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.
April 18 Tuesday – Still ailing in Chicago, Sam wrote to Livy, back at the Villa Viviani in Florence:
The doctor is done with me but requires Mr. Hall to keep me in bed a day longer, & maybe two. I do not mind it, for the reading & smoking is (are) pleasant — but! Yesterday the calling was like a levee. No respite, no rest. To-day we are wiser.
April 19 Wednesday – Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.
April 2 Sunday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. The Brooklyn Eagle ran a squib for Sam’s new book:
The £1,000,000 Bank Note — by Mark Twain, just published, at $1.00, one vol., cloth; store price, 65c.
Meanwhile, in Venice, Italy, Livy wrote to Sam:
Youth Darling how I wish that you were here with us this morning. It is absolutely glorious. Oh Venice is a charmer! I love it so, and yet it is often very melancholy.
April 20 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, enclosing a letter from their sister Pamela, hoping that Sam would go to see her; “She will feel much hurt if you do not”; she hadn’t received her royalty from Whitmore. Orion had failed to secure employment with the Keokuk Gate City or the St. Louis Republic as a correspondent to the Chicago fair [MTP].
James W. Paige visited Sam in his sick bed. Sam wrote of the meeting in his Apr. 23 notebook entry.
April 21 Friday – At the Great Northern Hotel in Chicago, Sam ventured out of bed for the first time since becoming ill with a bad cold upon arriving on Apr. 13.
April 22 Saturday – In Chicago Sam was able to walk “about the room” during Apr. 21 and 22 [Apr. 24 to Orion].
April 23 Sunday – Sam’s notebook in Chicago:
April 24 Monday – At 3:15 p.m. in Chicago, Sam responded to Orion’s Apr. 20 letter. He told of being able to walk about the room for parts of the past two days, and the doctor deciding he was well enough to travel. Sam and Fred Hall would leave “a couple of hours hence for New York by the Limited.” He’d heard from the family and passed on the news.
April 25 Tuesday – Sam spent the day on the train and arrived in New York in the evening, taking a room at the Murray Hill Hotel [Apr. 24 to Whitmore].
April 26 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Werra, Sat. Apl. 26, 10. a.m.” [NB 33 TS 7].
At the Murray Hill Hotel in New York, Sam, in a rather crabby mood, wrote to Orion Clemens:
April 27 Thursday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.:
Apl. 27. To-day is the grand Columbian naval parade here in New York Harbor & Hudson River, & I am still sick & can’t go to see it [NB 33 TS 11].
April 28 Friday – Dr. and Mrs. Clarence C. Rice moved Sam from the Murray Hill Hotel into their home at 81 Irving Place, N.Y. [Apr. 30 to Warner]. Note: MTHHR p.11 gives 123 E. 19th St. as Rice’s address.
In Florence Livy wrote to Sam:
April 3 Monday – Sam landed in New York at 6 p.m. [NB 33 TS 5] and took a room at the Glenham Hotel [MTHL 2: 651n1].
April 30 Sunday – In N.Y. at Dr. Rice’s home, Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull, directing her to send a book she wished him to have to Elmira, in care of Charles J. Langdon.
April 4 Tuesday – At 10:15 p.m. at the Glenham Hotel in N.Y., Sam wrote to Livy. He’d spent the evening with Howells and Hall [MTHL 2: 651n1; NB 33 TS 5].
Livy darling, Howells has this moment gone — has been here an hour or so. I am going to lunch at his house tomorrow. As he was leaving he said Charles Warren Stoddard was out there last night & told this story — which Mrs. Howells thought of doubtful propriety:
April 5 Wednesday – Sam lunched with William Dean Howells; They also met at 8 or 8:30 p.m. at the home of Mary Mapes Dodge for dinner. Also in the company, Rudyard Kipling and wife, and Mary Mapes Dodge, Mary’s son James M. Dodge and wife, and William Fayal Clarke (now editor of St. Nicholas Magazine) [Apr. 4 to Livy, Howells; MTHL 2: 652nn1; MTB 964; NB 33 TS 5].