Livy in Florence DBD

February 28 Sunday – Lyon’s journal: Isabel and the Clemenses went “to the theatre to see a play by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), acted by his wife” on an unspecified date during the month [TS 14, MTP].Note: Maeterlinck was a Belgian playwright and poet who wrote in French. He won the Nobel prize in Literature in 1911. By 1904 he had written at least fourteen plays.

February 29 Monday – Miss Emily Katherine Bates (usually seen as E. Katherine Bates) English novelist, travel writer, member of the English Society for Psychical Research, wrote from Rome to Sam.

Dear Mr. Clemmens [sic] / I am writing to you instead of to Mrs Clemens because I think it may be easier to find you!

February 3 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Marchesa Alli Macarani / Lung’ Arno del Dempio, 2 / 1 st & 3d Wednesdays” [NB 47 TS 5].

Dr. Laing Gordon wrote two letters to Sam.

February 4 Thursday – Clara Clemens wrote to her friend Dorothea Gilder (daughter of Richard Watson Gilder), about a screaming confrontation with her father (the letter was postmarked Feb. 5 and refers to the episode as “yesterday.”

I have reached the very lowest stage a human being can drop. I have had an attack of what everyone in the house calls hysteria the one thing of all others I have always despised most.

February 5 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “3. The Cingalese. 3 pm” [NB 47 TS 6]. Note: the Cingalese were natives of Ceylon descended from its primitives, which makes little sense in this Florentine context; the reference is possibly to another play.

February 6 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “3d, 4th, 5th, 6th Miss Lyon very ill. / Cabled Dr. Starr at 11 a.m. / Went to bank with Smith & to Mrs. Ryerson’s. Saw Rev. Mr. Alear there. Billiards with Smith. Mrs. Lyon told Clara the donkey had been chased 2 hours—no notice given any one of the danger” [NB 47 TS 6].

George Gregory Smith wrote to Sam, offering suggestions for Isabel Lyon to sue the Countess Massigila, and for Sam to bring suit for loss of services of Miss Lyon [MTP].

February 7 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Prof. Pietro Grocco. Livy was getting worse and the good doctor was not always available. Jean Clemens copied the paragraph over in French [MTP].

February 8 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to to Frederick A. Duneka.

Yes, I prefer that you shall handle the Dog Tale in England. If Chatto inquires, I will explain. I suppose it will be sufficient to say that the Harpers proposed it & that our relations & interests are now so closely united that I naturally want to do anything which in their judgment is best for both.

January 1 Friday – Sam read about a Chicago fire disaster in the NY Evening Post [Gribben 503; fragment MTP].

January 10 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam finished his Jan. 7 to Joe Twichell.

P. S. 3 days later.

Livy is as remarkable as ever. The I wrote you—that night, I mean—she had a bitter attack of gout or rheumatism occupying the whole left arm from shoulder to fingers, accompanied by fever. The pains racked her 50 or 60 hours; they have departed, now—and already she is planning a trip to Egypt next fall, and a winter’s sojourn there! This is life in her yet.

January 11 Monday – In New York, Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam with payment amounts from Harpers for his financial account, which totaled $10,346.43 [MTHHR 550-1].

January 12 Tuesday – In New York, H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam

I have your favor of 30th ult. Miss Harrison is sending you statements of accounts showing receipts from Harper, which I trust will be satisfactory. The explanations will go forward with her letter, so I need not refer to them here. …

I wish I could follow out your suggestion in regard to going to Italy. I am about fagged out again, having been at work since October. My Boston suit is not yet settled, and I go on the rack again on Saturday next.

January 14 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam dictated a note in Italian to daughter Clara for Rev. Raffaello Stiattesi asking his aid in getting the Countess Massiglia to keep her dog quiet, as it was disturbing Livy’s sleep. He offered 100 lire to the church for their good offices [MTP: Superior Auction Galleries catalog, Nov. 6, 1993, Item 144].

January 15 Friday – Mollie Clemens (Mrs. Orion Clemens; Mary Eleanor Stotts) died at age 69 in Keokuk, Iowa. [NY Times, Jan. 16, 1904, “Obituary Notes,” p.9]. Note: Sam referred to not telling Livy of Mollie’s death in his Feb. 14 to Carpenter.

January 16 Saturday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, enthused about the method of dictating his autobiography. He’d not yet uttered a sentence that Livy felt needed changing. He recommended the technique to Howells then shared his schedule for dictating.

January 17 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Countess Valgoria / Via Cennini 2 / 4.30 to 7” [NB 47 TS 4].

Countess Frances R. Massiglia wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s reply of Jan. 18 per Clara.

January 18 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Daniel Willard Fiske.

“I have been in to ask Mrs. Clemens, and she says ‘Give him my love, and say I have been very wretched but am better today; and tell him our day is Thursday, and we say this because we want to see him & talk with him, not get mere glimpses of him on the road’” [MTP].

Sam also replied per daughter Clara to Frances R. Massiglia’s Jan. 17 note (not extant).

January 19 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Mailed ‘St. Joan of Arc’ to the Harpers…(Mailed it Jan. 19, but wrote Jan. 20 to recall it” [NB 47 TS 4]. Note: Sam wrote this under Jan. 14 NB entry. Also under this day: “Countess Crenville / 5 Via Dante da Castiglione / Lunch, 1 p.m.” [ibid.].

An unidentified person sent a telegram to Sam: “Mollie gone” is all it reads; the place sent is Italian but illegible [MTP].

January to May, 1904 — Daniel Willard Fiske wrote a note on a brown scrap of paper:  Since 2 this a.m. I am enjoying a stalwart assault of gout.  Mrs. Schaeffer, sister of Eugene Schuyler, his biographer and the editor of his writings, with her interesting daughter, is at the Villino Montebello. I don’t [know] whether you know her or not. Kindest regards and best wishes to Mrs. Clemens & the house hold [MTP]

January 2 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Italian Without a Master” ran in Harper’s Weekly for Jan. 2, 1904.

It was included in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].

January 20 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook entry (see Jan. 19) shows he recalled “St. Joan of Arc” that he’d mailed to Harpers [NB 47 TS 4].

January 22 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Call on Geo de Forest Brush. / Villa il Giviello / 10 Via San Leonardo / Countess Valegoria / (See Jan. 17 / [Horiz. Line separator] / And Mrs. Roosevelt-Scovel / (Chevalier) / Villa la Terrazza / Viale Macchiavelli” [NB 47 TS 4]. Note: George de Forest Brush (1855-1941) painter; would be at Dublin, N.H. when Sam stayed there, in Oct. 1905.

January 23 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Baroness Chazal / 37 via Santa Reperata / Tuesdays / & Miss Anstey (sister)” [NB 47 TS 5].

January 24 Sunday – Edward Rimbault Dibdin wrote to Sam. “My friend William Archer visited me a few days after he called on you in Florence, a fact which he mentioned when I referred to you in connection with a subject we were discussing—the origin and early history of photographic lantern slides.” Dibdin enclosed an article by him from the Jan. 4, 1904 issue of The Amateur Photographer, “The Lantern Lecturer – His Sins and Sorrows.” He wrote he would “greatly value any hints you can give me on the subject” [MTP].

January 25 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Mrs. Clemens says she is not “in better health & spirits in consequence” of your not writing me; that your letters haven’t any such effect. But I tell you what! she finds these last 6 weeks in bed a pretty hard trial; she got knocked back just as she was beginning to get out-doors. But Professor Grocco says she will certainly begin to make some progress soon.