Vol 3 Section 0302

252                                                                        1899

popularity in the German-speaking countries with those of the best-known native contemporary writers, has, during his two years’ stay in the Kaiserstadt, become quite a familiar and welcome figure to the humor-loving Viennese and a great favorite in Austrian society. …

Mr. Clemens has kindly given me permission to telegraph to The Times some particulars of a pet scheme of his to which he has already devoted a great deal of his time and which will occupy a great part of the remainder of his life. In some respects it will be unparalleled in the history of literature. It is a bequest to posterity, in which none of those now living and comparatively few of their grandchildren even will have any part or share. This is a work which is only to be published 100 years after his death as a portrait gallery of contemporaries with whom he has come into personal contact [Scharnhorst 332-3]. Note: abridged in NY Journal and Adveriser, June 4, p. 42; NY Tribune, June 10, p. 8.

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898), American author and socialist, died from tuberculosis at his childhood home in Chicopee, Mass. Sam admired Bellamy for his famous novel, Looking Backward 2000-1887 (1888), which Sam began reading on the train, Nov. 5, 1889. Sam met Bellamy on Jan. 3, 1890 in Hartford. See entries Vol. II.

May 23 Tuesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam cabled Chatto & Windus: “COMING BY CALAIS DOVER SHALL

REACH PRICE WALES HOTEL ABOUT FIRST JUNE PLEASE GIVE THEM NOTICE” [MTP].

Sam also wrote a short invitation for Eduard Pötzl to dine on May 24 at 8 p.m. [MTP].

Sam also wrote a one sentence reply to an unidentified person: “It is not an inconvenience to me, but a pleasure to comply” [MTP].

May 24 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Dr. James R. Clemens, sharing their plans to leave Vienna on May 26 and to stay the Prince of Wales Hotel, Kensington, upon their arrival in England. The Clemens family intended to travel by daylight trains only [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Francis H. Skrine, another who had invited the Clemenses to stay with them upon arrival in London (invitation not extant):

It is lovely of you to make us that generous offer of hospitality, & we very highly appreciate it; but we are not a band of angels, but a menagerie, & must live in a Zoo or a hotel, where we can be properly restrained & kept down. This duty will fall upon the manager of the Prince of Wales hotel in De Vere Gardens, Kensington, where we expect to arrive in the early days of June & shall be glad to shake you & Mrs. Skrine by the hand there [MTP].

Sam also telegraphed (not extant) and then wrote to Percy Spalding.

Thank you ever so much for the trouble you have taken about the hotels. I have telegraphed you to-day that we wish to try the Prince of Wales hotel. I wanted to speak sooner, but couldn’t, for I had asked for an audience & couldn’t know what date, the Emperor [Franz Josef I] would appoint, for sometimes there is a month’s delay.

But our movements are definitely charted out, now.

We leave here May 26 & go by Prague, Nuremburg, Cologne, Brussels, Calais, Dover—traveling in the daytime only. We may reach London at 7.30 p.m. May 31, but perhaps it will be 24 hours later.

Sam would telegraph Spalding from Cologne or Brussels so the hotel might know the exact date of their arrival [MTP].

May 25 Thursday – Vienna, Austria. This is the day Mark Twain was ushered in to see the Emperor Franz Josef I. Dolmetsch discusses who invited whom, settling on the idea that the Emperor likely acted upon the suggestion of his royal minister of foreign affairs, Count Agenor Goluchowski von Goluchowo (1849-1921). For

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