Vol 3 Section 0405

1900                                                                            ³⁵⁵

 

I am in a most grateful mood, for that was just a perfect visit for us Clemenses & we cannot call to mind the match to it for luxuriously complete & satisfying enjoyment. It was better than being at home; for it was being at home, with the cares & responsibilities extinguished. So to speak, it was heaven, with old Gillette missing.

I send my best love to you, & to my dear dinner-partner, & to Stanley; & I hope you may all continue happy up to your deserts. In that case you will need no addition that this life can furnish, I am sure of it. / Sincerely Yours… [MTP]. Note: the visit at the Stanley estate was from Apr. 13 to 16. Sam’s “dinner-partner” is

not identified.

 

April 18 Wednesday – Christian B. Tauchnitz wrote from Maxen, Germany to Sam, the letter not extant but referred to in Tauchnitz’s May 12 [MTP].

 

Chatto & Windus’ Jan. 1, 1904 statement to Clemens shows 1,000 2s.0d. copies of P&P were printed, for a total printed to date of 14,250 [1904 Financials file MTP].

 

Sam’s notebook: “Notified elected director of Plasmon Syndicate / S.S. McClure coming 24th

 

/ Wrote Sec’y of Treasury” [NB 43 TS 8]. Note: Lyman J. Gage was Sec’y. Sam elected on Apr. 11.

 

In London, England Sam wrote an aphorism to Miss Bessie S. Bowker, Peckham, S.E., London: “There isn’t a Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the Equator if it had had its rights. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Miss Bessie S. Bowker. / Apl. 19, 1900” [MTP].

 

Jonas Henrick Kellgren Osteopath, billed £24.3.0 for visits to Apr. 19 for Jean’s treatments [1900 Financial file MTP]. Note: the good doctor’s bills don’t always appear to be consecutive and are not usually itemized beyond amounts and last date (compare this amount and date with the Apr. 14 bill).

 

April 20 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Garrick Theatre—Zaza. / Wrote Mr. Rogers we sail June 16. / ‘Lost Child’! Heard it only in Hannibal. Was it never in England or elsewhere?” [NB 43 TS 8].

 

Note: Mrs. Leslie Carter (Mrs. William Louis Payne; born Caroline Louise Dudley), sometimes called the American Bernhardt, played Zaza, the title character in David Belasco’s 1899 production, in April 1900 at the Garrick. William Winter called her one of those “obtruding harlots on the stage”; the NY Times later offered, “nothing quite so glaringly vicious as the symbols of vice in Zaza had ever been put before decent American eyes” [Theatre Journal, 54.2 (May 2002) p. 223-43]. Belasco followed Zaza with Madame Du Barry. “Lost Child” (song) see Gribben 424.

 

At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote to Mr. Whitney, sorry that “the mortgage upon my possible work is indefinite in term,” and so felt “it would not be wise to make any promises yet” [MTP]. Note: likely Caspar Whitney, editor of The Outing Magazine; See Mar. 9.

 

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers

 

“By a letter received yesterday from Mr. [Paul] Kester I am aware that he has been to see you, with good results. Whether he makes a good play or not, I like his enthusiasm. Doubtful people are handicapped to start with.”

 

Sam had also received “a couple of belated letters” from Samuel S. McClure, who had put off the start of his planned new magazine, for which he wanted Sam to be editor-in-chief. Sam was relieved as this would give him time to write some things for the first year’s issue without being crowded.

 

 

 

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