Vol 3 Section 0182
February 25 Friday – Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam, enclosing copies of creditor letters of thanks. Katharine thanked him for sending FE which arrived “a few days since” [MTHHR 323 and n1]. Note: more creditor letters, dated Mar. 4 to Apr.16, 1898 would follow; a prior batch of these had been sent on Jan.7 and another would be sent on Apr. 26.
James Whitcomb Riley wrote from Indianapolis to Sam, complimenting him on FE:
“For a solid week—night sessions—I have been glorying in your last book—and if you’ve ever done anything better, stronger, or of wholesomer uplift I can’t recall it. So here’s my heart and here’s my hand with all the augmented faith and applause of your proudest countryman! It’s just a hail I’m sending you across the spaces—not to call you from your blessed work an instant, but simply to join my voice in the universal cheer that is steadfastly going up for you…” [Gribben 581: Letters of James Whitcomb Riley p. 223-4; MTB 1055]. Note: letter had been misdated Dec. 1897 by Riley, noted by MTP.
February 26 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, having resolved the Gordon-Cumming matter in his own mind after seeing the original and subsequent revisions.
“I guess we’ve ‘got’ the late Cummings’s [sic Cumming’s] sensitive relative. I have sent your letter to him, & written him…”
Sam suggested a way they might footnote the quote and point to the “whole hideous” article by Roualeyn Gordon Cumming. He also asked for four more copies of More Tramps Abroad,, and related Bliss’ desire to use the maxims of PW in a calendar, with Sam’s counter suggestion to print a set of 60 postcards—would Chatto like to try that “scheme”? [MTP]. Note: See Feb. 1 from Dunbar (the “sensitive relative”) and Feb. 17 to C&W for the backstory on this letter.
February 27 Sunday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, noting an omission of money from Bliss’ Jan. statement for “the advance-matter furnished to the magazine” (McClure’s). Sam figured the sale should have netted him $1,000 since the Century Co. would have paid that. “& that is where it should have gone.” Sam scolded Bliss for acting on his own to give the piece to McClure’s and not the Century Magazine:
The Century people released me from my agreement with them on my plea that no advance-matter was to be published. They now consider that a not very reputable game has been played upon them. Who is to blame? I? I think not.
Do you find that the book still sells? I remember you thought it would go on selling, & I hope your opinion has been justified [MTP].
February 28 Monday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a short note, per Livy, to William Grieg, thanking him “for the compliment in wishing to read from my books.” Permission granted [MTP].
March – Harper’s Monthly published Mark Twain’s “Stirring Times in
Austria” in their Mar. 1898 issue. Dolmetsch writes of the reaction in
Vienna to the article, which:
…did not escape notice in Vienna newspapers., adding more fuel to the anti-Semites’ fire. Even his friends on the Neue Freie Presse, lengthily reviewing “Stirring Times” in two separate articles and generally sympathetic to his views, were surprised at his “brutally frank” report of the stormy scenes he
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.