Vol 3 Section 1055

Please put all such things in a barrel, & leave them there till I come.

(Barrel or furnace—take your choice.) / None of the stuff is ever worth the postage [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Richard Watson Gilder: “Here are samples of those letters. Jean has made the type-copies for me, & by my order. She has followed the curious accenting & punctuation of the originals. / Mrs. Clemens remains about the same—with perhaps a slight improvement” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Charles J. Langdon in Elmira, N.Y.

Livy thanks you very much for your good letter, & for rescript of her account. She wants me to ask you to send $200 to the Lincoln National Bank to be placed to credit of our account.

Livy is making some trifle of progress this past week, we think, & we know she is holding her own at any rate. We have secured a furnished villa twenty miles from Florence for the summer months, but she will not be able to be moved to it. However, she will not suffer here from the heat. Yesterday was entirely comfortable

      pleasant in this house, yet the thermometer came within 3 degrees of the hottest day Florence has seen in 5 years. That renowned hottest day marked 91 [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Countess Seristori / 5 p.m. ‘The Fly’” [NB 47 TS 11].

May 28 Saturday

May 29 Sunday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Francis B. Keene. “I am very much obliged. I am writing the Harpers that I will let them know by Sept. 1, whether to pay the duties & keep the portrait in America, or decline the duties & return it to me here” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Villa-hunting these many many days. We can’t stay in the neighborhood of this fiendish Countess Massiglia—an American adventuress & born skunk” [NB 47 TS 11]. Note: Also, right under this entry, below a printed heading of Note for May (in Italian):

“English & Americans are foreigners, but in lesser degree than is the case with other peoples. Men & women—even man & wife—are foreigners. Each has reserves that the other cannot enter into nor understand. These have the effect of frontiers” [ibid.]

Bradley Gilman wrote from Rome to Sam. His wife had met Sam years ago at the Perkins home in Hartford. He was a clergyman, Unitarian Congregational, author of several books. Since they were coming to Florence about June 6, they would like very much to call [MTP]. Note: the Perkins likely referred to would have been Sam’s attorney in Hartford, Charles E. Perkins.

Arthur Von Becker wrote from Florence about the possibility of Sam renting his villa [MTP].

May 30 Monday

May 31 Tuesday – Susan Crane wrote to Sam, forwarding a request by Mary P. Partridge, dated May 29, asking for his autograph. Mary was “a most respectable old lady,” Sue wrote, “whose daughter Mrs Diven was one of Livy’s old friends, therefore I could not decline to make the request” [MTP].

Annie M. Webster wrote to Sam. “We were later reaching New York than we expected and my first question was whether there was any news of Aunt Livy. But there was nothing since the sad sad letter from you. I do hope that she is better.” After trying to cable the $200 she owed and finding obstacles, she enclosed a draft for 1,000 Lire. “We found my mother very much improved. She takes long rides almost every day” [MTP].

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