June 1 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “LUNCH 1 pm. / Duke of York’s—3 p.m. / Doubleday—lunch Be at Savoy Grill Room, Strand entrance / 1 p.m./ Theatre (Mrs. C.) / Andrew Lang? / (A. Abbey, 8 pm” [NB 43 TS 13-14]. Note: Duke of York at this time was Prince George (1865-1936) who became King George V in 1910.
In London Sam attended a dinner hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Austin Abbey. In her 1931 reminiscences, Adele Chapin (Mrs. Robert Chapin) puts the dinner at two days before Whitsuntide (a UK designation for Pentecost, or seven weeks after Easter). Chapin counts among the guests herself and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder, James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Mark Twain and Miss Cecilia Beaux. Chapin writes this was the first time Sam and Whistler met:
When I entered the room Mr. Abbey told me that Mark Twain and Whistler had never met before; that he wanted them to discover each other, without warning or introduction, and that we were to watch for that moment. Whistler was the first to arrive. All eyes were turned to the door. He sauntered in, a Machiavellian or—yes, a Mephistophelian figure—the loose, black lock curved on his forehead, the waxed moustache, the shaggy brows, the loose-jointedness. He moved as if he were on ball-bearings; one was conscious of all his joints, and felt that he might stop and strike a pose on any chair or other article of furniture he passed.
….
When we were seated at table, I discovered that I was between Mark Twain and Whistler. They had not yet seen each other. I was for some time a sufficient barrier, but finally Whistler leaned forward and said:
“That man looks like Mark Twain!”
And Mr. Clemens answered at once:
“Are you Whistler?”
And they were off. The sparring was wonderful. There was no separating them, and we listened to their talk far into the night [184-5].
Notes: Reminiscences some decades later are often suspect. Actually, Twain and Whistler had been at the same dinner in 1879, though Clemens wrote “but he did not attract me” [MTB 646]. Also an anecdote of a meeting when Sam lived at 23 Tedworth Square is often told (Weintraub puts it at the winter of 1896-7, p. 430; see entry in 1897 Winter); if true it would also predate this event. The attractive Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942), realist painter in the style of John Singer Sargent, was one of the most successful portrait artists of her day; at this time her work was in high demand. Beaux was a close friend of Richard Watson Gilder, who helped promote her career. Dorothea Gilder, Richard’s daughter, was also a close friend of Beaux, who often stayed and painted at Four Brooks Farm in Tyringham, Mass. Dorothea Gilder’s papers, including correspondence with Beaux who traveled to London with Dorothea’s parents at the time, are online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art site. See July 20, 1904 for another possible meeting between Clemens and Beaux.