Vol 3 Section 0276

Note: Camfield evaluates Warner as “one of the five most important of Twain’s mentors in writing.” He also notes the closeness of the families in the first five years of the Clemenses’ residence in Hartford and that Livy and Susan Warner “maintained the closeness of their friendship to the end.” He then cites a rumor that Sam and Warner’s “estrangement began when Clemens learned that Warner kept a mistress (in whose house he died of a heart attack in 1900)” [641].

Sam’s notebook:

“Feb. 15. Letter from Mr. Rogers to-day saying he has received it from Bliss ($5,589.16) & placed it to my credit”[NB 40 TS 53]. Note: this amount included the disputed $1,000 Bliss owed from the unauthorized McClure’s Magazine excerpts of FE.

Right after the above entry (possibly from Feb. 15 to the end of the month):

Feb., ’99—written in the autograph album of Madam Diamondy:

One of the Carbon Commonalty to the Head of the Family:

O pride & glory of our Race

Far flashing from the royal crown,

Forgotten is our smutty skin,

And dusty face & humble mien,

And poverty, & lowly kin,

In this dear thought’s uplifting grace:

Carbon & Thou are one! [NB 40 TS 53-4].

February 16 Thursday

February 17 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Annette Hullah, a student of Theodor Leschetizky.

It was a very great pleasure you gave me in putting that book into my hands; it had ended-up a good many days comfortably & interestingly for me after my drudge of work. I thank you lots & lots.

We are all going about an hour hence, to hear Mark Hambourg play; come along—you shall have a front seat! [MTP]. Note: Mark Hambourg was a particularly successful pianist and student of Leschetizky.

February 18 Saturday – Hy Mayer’s article, “Unconventional Statues—V. ‘Would Make a Sphinx Laugh,’” ran in The Criterion (N.Y.), p.15: Tenney: “A full-page cartoon of MT, pipe in mouth, sitting in a lap of a laughing sphinx statue” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) 7].

Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Sam [MTP:NYPL not yet in file]. In Gilder Letter-Press Book v.4 p. 189.

February 19 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to H.H. Rogers, after receiving another letter (not extant) with profitable stock news:

Why, it is just splendid! I have nothing to do but sit around & watch you set the hen & hatch out those big broods & make my living for me. Don’t you wish you had somebody to do the same for you?—a magician who can turn steel & copper & Brooklyn gas into gold. I mean to raise your wages again—I begin to feel that I can afford it. I think the hen ought to have a name; she must be called Unberufen. That is a German word which is equivalent to “’sh! hush! don’t let the spirits hear you!” The superstition is, that if you happen to let fall any grateful jubilation over good luck that you’ve had or are hoping to have, you must shut square off & say “Unberufen!” & knock wood—the word drives the evil spirits away….Set her again—do!

…

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