Vol 3 Section 0095
Sam also replied to a letter (not extant) from Frank Fuller, who had been hard at work with the grand lecture idea Sam had suggested on May 27. Giving the bad news, Sam wrote:
Dear Old Man: / That plan of yours would be splendid and could be successfully worked, too I believe, but Livy refuses her consent and so we’ve got to drop it. She says that if I can go on the platform again I must go in the old way and at ordinary prices, and she won’t let me diverge from that. And so, it’s good-bye, platform for the undersigned. ….
I am ever so grateful to you and ever so glad you were willing to make that big lift for me and that Mrs. Fuller gave it help and sanction. But I see that I have got to stick to the legitimate and I never liked the legitimate much.
Sam also divulged they would leave for Switzerland and then to Vienna in the fall. The choice had been made for Clara to become a pupil of Polish/Czech Theodor Leschetizky (Teodor Leszetycki, in Polish)
(1830-1915) [MTP]. Note: Leschetizky visited London in September, 1897 and played some of his own compositions at Mr. Daniel Mayer’s reception at the Salle Erard [Theodor Leschetizky, by Annette Hullah (1906) p.23]. The Clemenses did not meet the Maestro during this time, however, though they may have read of the reception; they first met in Vienna.
July 3 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to Florence Hayward, London foreign correspondent, whom he had turned down on Jan. 29 for an interview. Her request is not extant.
“Perhaps I could be interviewed a little—just a little—for the St. Louis Republic, but not for an English paper, because I have declined them all, including the Pall Mall, & must not stultify myself now.”
Sam wanted to screen her questions first, and didn’t know how he could make an appointment, what with the “hurly -burly getting ready for the continent.” He expected they’d leave in a week if Livy was well enough to travel by then. Hayward might “try any noon after Monday” [MTP]. Note: Livy’s condition since her eye surgery on June 25 was evidently the cause for a week’s extension on the rent and the delayed departure until July 13.
Ridout & Co., London wrote to Sam: “We understand from Mr. Garth that you have arranged to continue the tenancy for a week from today, and we shall be pleased to hear from you early in reference to appointment for checking Inventory,etc.” [MTP: Heritage Auction Galleries 19 Jan. 2010, No. 6039, Lot 35211].
July 4 Sunday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, advising that they were leaving England “early in the morning the 9th ,” and asking if their “inventory man” would come on July 6. He also asked for the company messenger to pick up the rest of the finished (typed) manuscript, “both the original, for you, & the typed copy” he wished to be sent to H.H. Rogers, 26 Broadway, N.Y.C [MTP].
July 5 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to an unidentified man that due to their change of plans there was no available time, so forgive him [MTP].
July 6 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam telegraphed to James B. Pond “Make it 9 tomorrow” [MTP]. Note: In his July 7 to Moffett, Sam wrote, “Yesterday [July 6] I arranged with Pond to go home & lecture all the fall & winter—provided your aunt Livy should consent.” This makes it likely that Pond and Sam exchanged more communiqués and did not meet at 9 a.m. on July 7, but sometime on this day, July 6.
Sam’s notebook for July 7: “Yesterday Pond offered me $50,000 & all expenses for 125 nights on the platform in America. Mrs. Clemens is not quite willing, & I suppose I shall not accept” [NB 41 TS 43-4].
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.