Vol 3 Section 0246

At an art dealer’s in the Graben are now to be seen medallions with a life-like portrait of Mark Twain, and they are much liked. They by no means betray the fact that he sat without intending it. Unsuspicious of what awaited him, he went to the Deutsches Volkstheater one night, where he greatly enjoyed the performance. Meanwhile, however, a young artist in the next box was drawing away, all through the four acts, in fact, taking the unconscious author’s portrait. Then the young fellow at home modeled the head so beautifully that the Austrian Art Industrial Museum bought one of his medallions. The artist is still attending grammar school, and his name is Arthur Loewenthal. He did not conceive the idea of catching the illustrious American at the theatre until after the latter had kindly but decidedly refused to sit to him, declaring that he had already sat for his portrait so often he could not bear any more sittings.

October 29 Saturday

October 30 Sunday

October 31 Monday

November – “From the ‘London Times’ of 1904” first ran in the November issue of Century. It was collected in How to Tell a Story, and Other Essays (1900) and The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900) [Budd Collected 2: 1004].

Noah Brooks’ article, “Mark Twain in California,” ran in the Century p.97-99. Tenney: “Repeats the familiar history of MT’s early days in California; interesting only for the weight lent by the fact that Brooks was managing editor of the Sacramento Alta California, which sent MT on the Quaker City tour. (P. 96 is an engraving by T. Johnson from a photograph by Sarony)” [29].

Sam began the unfinished “Schoolhouse Hill” in Nov. 1898 and worked on it through Dec. F. Kaplan writes,

In its six chapters, it again brought young Satan to St. Petersburg, where he becomes Huck and Tom’s much-admired friend….All St. Petersburg/Hannibal is in awe of young Satan, “the miraculous boy” of

prodigious talent and essential goodness who becomes known as “Forty-four,” a representation of one of Twain’s own multiple selves, the boy he partly saw himself as having been and the creative writer he had become [569].

November 1 Tuesday

November 2 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to James M. Tuohy of the New York World, who had requested a story for Christmas (Tuohy’s letter not extant):

For several months I have been at work a little, at considerable intervals, on two stories; & when your letter came both happened to be very close to the finish; I then added the necessary work and now they are done. …

One of these stories (“The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”) is longer than you want: 20,000 words— price $4,000; the other (“Wapping Alice”) is more than 8,000 words & less (I think) than 9,000—price $200 per 1,000—To be within the certainties I will call it sixteen hundred dollars, which goes $300 beyond the $1,300 offered by you for the minimum of 7,000 words.

If you wish to take one of these, please let me know & I will forward it to you [MTP].

Note: Sam’s notebook includes this offer and states Tuohy’s “order was for ‘7 to 10,000 words for 250 guineas’ (about $1,300.)” [NB 40 TS 48]. “Wapping Alice” was published in 1981 by Friends of the Bancroft Library.

Sam also replied to news from H.H. Rogers that he had purchased stock for him in Federal Steel (details on next notebook entry).

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.