May 2 Monday – George B. Harvey wrote from NY to Sam.
“I have just returned from a hurried trip to London where I remained two weeks and, like the man in the poker game did not have an opportunity to turn my head to spit. I saw Howells several times and he is looking very well….My great sorrow was that I could not sneak out the time to come down to Florence…” He enclosed a few clippings to make Sam smile (not in the file) [MTP].
May 20 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
May 21 Saturday – Sam’s note about the water situation continued: “May 21. At eleven o’clock the Countess sent word by the gardener that Mr. Clemens’s cook must not leave the villa before seven o’clock in the morning. The cook has been accustomed to leave at six every morning. / May 21. At 12.10 (pm) the water still dripping from the fountain faucet. / No, not dripping—it is a jet” [DV245]. Note: the family’s chef was Carlo Cosi [AMT 1: photo of servants following p.304].
May 22 Sunday – Sam’s note this date gave details in the ongoing conflict with the Countess Massiglia.
Sunday May 22: At 5.50 am the fountain was still playing.
Also at 7 when I got up to dress.
Also at 8.05 when I was at breakfast & turned & looked over my shoulder.
There was never such an unimpeachable witness on the stand: he testifies right along,night & day, that there is plenty of water to preserve my invalid wife from added disease-attacks, & he proves his testimony at the same time.
May 24 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Telephone countess Seristori concerning tomorrow” [NB 47 TS 11].
May 25 Wednesday – R.H. Slacke wrote from Shildon, County Durham, England to Sam: “For more than twenty years it has been on my mind to tell you that heaps of your admirers would rejoice to see the history of Joseph ‘as if fell from the lips of Scotty Briggs, riddled with slang.’ / Yours faithfully…” [MTP]. Note: see Buck Fanshaw’s funeral in ch. 47 of RI.
An unidentified person wrote from Arlington, England to Sam (only the envelope survives) [MTP].
May 26 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto Sam wrote to Gov. David R. Francis, St. Louis, Mo.
May 27 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
I keep forgetting to say:
Forward NOTHING to me that comes to your care by either MAIL or EXPRESS.
Please put all such things in a barrel, & leave them there till I come.
(Barrel or furnace—take your choice.) / None of the stuff is ever worth the postage [MTP].
May 29 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Francis B. Keene. “I am very much obliged. I am writing the Harpers that I will let them know by Sept. 1, whether to pay the duties & keep the portrait in America, or decline the duties & return it to me here” [MTP].
May 3 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto, Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Baroness Elisabeth de Nolde in Florence. (They would meet on May 12; see entry.)
Mr. Clemens wishes me to write for him to say that for some time he has been trying to call upon you but he cannot seem to do so, and he sends you Mr. Duneka’s letter, that you may see what he says, and determine whether you will write him yourself or let the matter drop.
May 31 Tuesday – Susan Crane wrote to Sam, forwarding a request by Mary P. Partridge, dated May 29, asking for his autograph. Mary was “a most respectable old lady,” Sue wrote, “whose daughter Mrs Diven was one of Livy’s old friends, therefore I could not decline to make the request” [MTP].
May 4 Wednesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam replied to Poultney Bigelow (incoming not extant).
Indeed I should like to be at next Year’s dinner, but of course Mrs. Clemens is most unlikely to be able to make a sea voyage then or even sometime later. We hope and expect to keep her in this world for years yet, but she will never again be strong enough to travel, I am afraid. We had her on her feet for a little while, but that was many months ago.
May 6 Friday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence, Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to I. Goldsmith Proctor, thanking him for the offer of Villa Granduchessa, which Sam had seen and found charming, but it was “not entirely suited to his needs” [MTP].
I. Goldsmith Proctor wrote from Florence to Sam about a possible villa for the Clemenses [MTP].
May 7 Saturday – Charles J. Langdon wrote to Livy, enclosing a statement to May 1 [MTP].
May 8 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Asked Dr. Kirch for his 3-months’ bill, & got it: $900! It is robbery. / Told Miss Lyon to ask him to put it in lire—which he did: 4,500—& he was embarrassed. $900 is about 4,630 lire. The man is a hog” [NB 47 TS 10]. Note: Sam would enjoin lawyers in a squabble over the billing.
May 9 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Muriel M. Pears.
November 1 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “These chattering, cackling squaws & monkeys will all be in hell in a hundred years. There is something pleasant in the thought. / The mission of Alexander Dowie (‘Elijah II’) is a bad failure in New York” [NB 46 TS 29]. Note: John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), Scottish evangelist and faith healer, founder of Zion, Illinois. In 1903 he held a two-week evangelistic healing campaign at Madison Square Garden.
November 10 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam sent a telegram to Daniel Willard Fiske: “WE BEAR WITH DEEPEST SORROW HEAR YOU ARE ILL ALL THIS FAMILY SEND LOVE WISHES FOR YOUR SPEEDY RECOVERY + CLEMENS” [MTP]. Note: in George Gregory Smith’s Sept. 5 to Sam, he noted that “Prof. Fiske who is now in Copenhagen, and I am sorry to say sadly afflicted with his old enemy gout” [Orth 36].
November 11 Wednesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he added a P.S. to on Nov. 12 and the balance on Nov. 15 [MTHHR 541-2]. Note: The segment written this day has been lost. The Nov. 12 and 15 segments remain.
November 12 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto Sam wrote to Countess Frances R. Massiglia.
I wish to ask permission to put in 3 or 4 “pigs;” in case it shall finally seem desirable to have them. Also I wish to ask leave to remove the annunciator to the ground floor, if you have no objections,—or put another annunciator down there, if these excursions into the unknown shall not turn out to be over-formidable & indiscreet [MTP].
November 13 Friday – Jean Holden wrote from Chicago to Sam asking permission to make slides of some of the pictures in JA [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Refer to Harper aout the pictures”
November 14 Saturday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam sent a telegram to Daniel Willard Fiske: “WE HOPE YOU ARE DAILY IMPROVING AND WILL SOON BE WITH US. + CLEMENS” [MTP]. Note: Fiske was in Copenhagen suffering from Gout .
November 15 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam finished his Nov. 11 and 12 to H.H.Rogers.
Nov. 15. Just in the edge of the evening of that day (the 12th) Mrs. Clemens got a bad & disabling burn, & is keeping her bed ever since. It was an accident, & not her fault. It will not be well soon.
November 16 Monday – Mary Elizabeth Phillips sent a money order to Sam for 25 cents, probably for the print she sent the day before (above) [MTP]. Note: on the env.: “Preserve this rubbish / SLC.”
November 17 Tuesday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote on John Y. MacAlister’s letter of introduction to Guido Biagi.