August 1 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Elizaveta N. Malashkina.
Dear Miss Elizabeth. I sent your letter to Paris, to my friend the great pianist Gabrilowitch (if that’s the way he spells his formidable name) & he put it into German for me and returned it. We are summering far from Riverdale, & I haven’t a photograph. But when we go home in October I will get one in New York & Autograph it & send it to you. (I have made a note of it in my note-book). I’ll not forget it [MTP].
August 11 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine, Sam’s notebook: “The Queen of Roumania’s friend was here; also Howells’s two friends” [NB 45 TS 23]. Note: Mrs. E. Hartwig, and Mr. & Mrs. Brand Whitlock.
Sam also wrote a postcard to William Dean Howells.
August 12 Tuesday – In York Harbor, Maine Livy suffered a severe attack. Some sources cite this as a heart attack. Robert Hirst of the Mark Twain Project in an Oct. 26, 1983 letter calls it “a serious attack of asthma.” Livy also had a heart condition.
Sam’s notebook: At 7 a.m. Livy taken violently ill. Telephoned, & Dr. Lambert was here in ½ hour. She could not breathe—was likely to stifle. Also she had severe palpitation. She believed she was dying. I also believed it [NB 45 TS 23].
August 13 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to Charles S. Fairchild’s Aug. 10 inquiry about the 14 W. 10th house for rent. It was “well enough, for a dam’d old rack-heap,” but he disdained the agent, “Something S. Brown,” whom he thought dishonest, and the owners, who were in Paris and who had left “one of the Christliest book-heaps” he knew of in the house [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers about the crisis of the prior day for Livy (see entry) and included.
August 14 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to the Denver Post’s Aug. 12 telegraph.
Your telegram reached me (per post) from “York Village” (which is a short brickbat throw from my house) yesterday afternoon when it was 30 hours old. And yet, in my experience, that was not only abnormally quick work for telegraph company to do, but abnormally intelligent work for that kind of mummy to be whirling off out of its alleged mind.
August 15 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
August 17 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine: Sam’s notebook: “Sue starts a.m.” [NB 45 TS 23]. Note: Sue Crane, to nurse Livy.
August 18 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine: Sam’s notebook: “Sue due here 11.45 a.m. At 9 this morning, Jervis handed in a telegram to Boston to say he & Sue would arrive here at 11.45—which they did. 2 hours later (at 1.45) the telegram reached me! It had then been in the York Harbor office one hour & a half (since 12.14. B. to Y.H. 4 ¾ hours by telegraph. / Chg 25 for deliver. / Don’t divulge its leaving-time” [NB 45 TS 23].
August 2 Saturday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Charles Bancroft Dillingham.
There is one change which will be best made before the serious work of revising the play & trimming & compressing it is begun—a change which I thought of when you were here, but which did not then seem really important—but the more I think of it more I perceive that it is important.
August 20 Wednesday – About this day H.H. Rogers made a quick visit to Sam at York Harbor [Aug 21 to Rogers].
August 21 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
As soon as you had been gone 2 hours & I had sent off an urgent letter to Boston for an air bed, then somebody mentioned that you had air beds on the yacht.
It is just my luck. I believed Mrs. Clemens had lost a whole day by that accident. Up to now she hast lost several. Of all the impossible places for the meeting of emergencies promptly & successfully, this is the impossiblest.
August 22 Friday – Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.
“The air bed is on its way from Boston & will arrive tomorrow. And the same is good news.
“Mrs. Clemens is doing so well that at last she was able to partially quit plasmon this morning & take to solid food. She slept well last night & is sleeping a good deal to-day” [MTHHR 499].
August 23 Saturday – The Omaha Daily World Herald sent a telegram to Sam. The Omaha public library had banned HF and the newspaper solicited his reaction.
In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to Omaha World Herald. His letter was published in the New York Times, Sept. 6, 1902, p.BR5 along with the story:
Mark Twain on “Huck Finn.”
August 25 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine: Sam’s notebook: “Livy’s illness hangs on, & on, from day to day, & there is never any great improvement; never anything to rouse us & make us jubilant” [NB 45 TS 24].
August 26 Tuesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to nephew Samuel E. Moffett.
No, I don’t think I shall ever give up the “Stale News” till I’m obliged to. I’ve had to drop it indefinitely, because I got at the finishment of a long tale here, & was so interested that I couldn’t get away from it. It is far from done, yet.
August 27 Wednesday – In York Harbor Sam wrote to Katharine B. Clemens (Mrs. James Ross Clemens) in St. Louis.
Your kind good letter of day before yesterday has just arrived—we got the former one, too, but we do not tell Livy anything; we only sit by & watch & nurse. She cannot bear excitement—& any talk would produce that.
We are not alarmed about her—it is the best I can say.
I steal a little while per day to answer letters with a line.
August 28 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Ida Langdon in Gloucester, Mass.
August 29 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam finished his Aug. 28 to H.H. Rogers, only certain that Livy would not be able to travel within the next week.
August 3 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, advising him of the letter of Witherbee’s he was sending, and seeking his advice as to the soundness of the deal.
I am mailing you a letter containing a proposition to buy the Hartford house for $50,000 worth of 5% railroad bonds; & I am telegraphing Whitmore to ask for an appointment & go down & get your judgment as to whether the bonds are safe & sound or not. The price ($50,000) is eminently satisfactory.
August 30 Saturday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.
I enclose $100.
I am not Brother Joseph—quite the reverse; & I don’t understand Sister Clement. Perhaps her letter was not intended for me.
I am quite willing to pray for her, if she will take all the risks. For this I will charge nothing; but when I insure with [a] fool I must have ecclesiastical rates.
August 4 Monday – Harper & Brothers wrote to Livy, advising that Sam’s article on Christian Science she ordered had not been republished in book form; the magazine was out of stock but Mr. A.S. Clark of the City could “supply good second hand copies” at more than 35 cents each [MTP].
August 5 Tuesday – In N.Y.C. H.H. Rogers gave his advice about Sidney A. Witherbee’s proposal to purchase Sam’s Hartford house:
August 6 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote a short note to Franklin G. Whitmore, on the top of H.H Rogers’ Aug. 5 letter. “Dear Brer: The following shows that Mr. Rogers disapproves. So do I, then, for I have the greatest confidence in his judgment” [MTP].
Sam also replied to John M. Sosey, secretary of the Missouri Press Assoc.
August 7 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Klaw & Erlanger, who were agents for Lee Arthur’s dramatization of HF.
Above, you will find a pair of samples; they are authentic autographs, for I wrote them myself.
August 9 Saturday – Brand Whitlock (1869-1934), municipal reformer, “novelist, politician, diplomat and a devoted younger friend of Howells,” visited Sam. Mrs. Whitlock accompanied her husband. Whitlock wrote a friend on Aug. 11: