Vol 3 Section 0291

Sam also wrote to Chatto & Windus, passing on a request from Mrs. Adolfine Fruhauf of Hohenzollern, Germany to translate into German his Nov. 1898 Century article on the Dreyfus case, “From the London Times of 1904.” Sam wrote his answer upon her letter, which follows:

“By granting this request you will confer a great favor to the undersigned, who would like to bring this splendid satire on the Dreyfus case to the notice of the German people, thorugh the medium of the ‘Frankfurter Zeitung.’”

Sam’s note to Andrew Chatto: “ I have no objection to her using the article temporarily, & if you are of like mind won’t you please write her to say so?” [MTP].

Sam also began a letter to William Dean Howells that he added to on Apr. 5, 6, 12 and 13.

I am waiting for the April Harper, which is about due now; waiting, & strongly interested. You are old enough to be a weary man, with paling interests, but you do not show it. You do your work in the same old delicate & delicious & forceful & searching & perfect way. I don’t know how you can—but I suspect. I suspect that to you there is still dignity in human life, & that Man is not a joke—a poor joke—the poorest that was ever contrived—An April-fool joke, played by a malicious Creator with nothing better to waste his time upon. Since I wrote my Bible (last year) which Mrs. Clemens loathes, & shudders over, & will not listen to the last half nor allow me to print any part of it, Man is not to me the respect-worthy person he was before, & so I have lost my pride in him & can’t write gaily nor praisefully about him any more. And I don’t intend to try. I mean to go on writing, for that is my best amusement, but I shan’t print much. (For I don’t wish to be scalped, any more than another) [MTHL 2: 689]. Note: Howells’ Their Silver Wedding Journey was running serially in Harper’s.

April 3 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his Apr. 2 to Poultney and Edith E. Bigelow.

Apr. 3. Would you recommend Guernsey? Or the Isle of Wight? I sort of warmly incline to the former.

Mrs. Clemens’ idea is not an inn, and of course not a pension [boarding house]. Nothing remains, then, but a furnished dwelling. That is probably not to be had.

How’s Devonshire? …

P.S. Says she wants a hotel—not an incompetent little inn, and not a dwelling house [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Robert Lutz, informing him he would send the biographical sketch he had begun which his nephew had edited for addition to his Uniform edition, as soon as he had received it back for final review. He again (as on Feb. 27) asked Lutz to suppress the unauthorized bio sketch in the “Lebensgeschichte.”

“There has never been an ‘authorised’ Biographical Sketch of me, but this new one will have that character, & you will be doing me a favor for which I shall be very grateful if you will use it & wholly suppress the other”

[MTP].

Charles R. Hall, President of the New York Building-Loan Banking Co., N.Y.C. wrote to Sam, enclosing the card of one Adolphe M. Glaser, who purported to be a “representative of Mark Twain, Vienna, Austria.” Hall had been solicited by Glaser for subscription to the Uniform Edition of Mark Twain’s works—was this a publisher’s scheme to “boom the sale” of Sam’s works, “Exploited by the owners of the copyright, and from which you will not derive any pecuniary benefit”? If so, Hall did not care to subscribe [MTP]. Note: Sam replied to Frank Bliss on Apr. 15, enclosing Hall’s letter. See entry.

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