December 18 Monday – At the Casino Theatre in the afternoon (Lyon’s journal #2 gives it as 2 p.m) following a performance by Sarah Bernhardt, Sam offered a few words for the benefit of Jewish sufferers in Russia. The New York Times, Dec. 19, p. 9 reported the event:
MARK TWAIN SPEAKS
AFTER BERNHARDT ACTS
Jewish Benefit Audience Enjoys an Unusual Double Bill.
$3,000 FOR THE RELIEF FUND
——— ——— ———
Humorist Says He and the Actress Are Two of the Youngest Persons Alive.
The benefit matinee for the Jewish sufferers in Russia, which was given at the Casino yesterday afternoon, drew a big crowd from the professional and social worlds. Among those who helped entertain it were Sarah Bernhardt and Mark Twain. During the hour just after luncheon the lobby of the theatre looked as if a greenroom reception for all New York were in progress. Well-known actresses in their prettiest afternoon gowns sold programmes and flowers at fancy prices. The prices, however, were no more objectionable than the smiles that went with them, and this feminine lobbying proved a popular and profitable device.
Each well-known actor was besieged as he entered with friendly demands upon is patience and pocketbook. Jacob Adler, who came a little late, could hardly force his way into the theatre through the crowd of young women, each of whom insisted upon selling him a programme and a rose.
Inside the theatre, boxes, orchestra, and balconies were filled to their utmost capacity.
Among the actors and actresses who volunteered their services were Kate Condon, Kitty Cheatham, and Chauncey Olcott, who sang; Auguste Van Biene, cellist; Ilka Palmay, in Hungarian dances; Henry Miller and Martha Waldron, in “Frederic Lemaitre,” and Margaret Anglin and her company in third act of “Zira.”
Sarah Bernhardt presented for the first time the one-act play, in French, “L’Escarpolette,” by Miss G. Constant Lounsbury, an American woman who spends most of her time in Paris. The play was given the following cast:
Le Chevalier Robert de Bellancourt……….Mme. Sarah Bernhardt
Celine …………………………………………….. Mle. Seylor
The Marquis ……………………………………. M. Chameroy
The piece is a dainty little production in which an eighteenth century Marquis destined by his father to marry a fiancée whom the young man has never seen, falls in love with a Fragonard portrait of a young girl in a swing. In seeking the Celine of his father’s choice the youth, after a bit of mystification, finds that his unknown fiancée is the original of his beloved Fragonard.
Mark Twain, who followed Mme. Bernhardt, spoke of the wonderful French language, which he always felt as if he were “just going to understand.”
“Mme. Bernhardt is so marvelously young,” he added. “She and I are two of the youngest people alive.”
Then the humorist told a story of how when Mme. Bernhardt was playing in Hartford some years ago three charitable old ladies decided to deny themselves the pleasure of seeing the great actress and to send the money instead to some needy friends.
“And the needy friends,” concluded Mr. Clemens drily, “gratefully took the money and bought Bernhardt tickets with it.”
Both Mr. Clemens and Mme. Bernhardt received warm welcomes.
Among those in the boxes were Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schiff, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Guggenheim, Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Guggenheim, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Gureaux, Mme. Bernhardt, Miss Margaret Anglin, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lehman, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), and Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Adler.
Ilka Palmay, Ruth Vincent, Kitty Gordon, Josephine Jacoby, Violet Holls, Isabelle Urquhart, and Annette Kohn were among those who distributed programmes and flowers in the foyer.
About $3,000 was realized from the performance.
Miss Anglin was asked by Mme. Bernhardt after the benefit if she would appear with her in Maeterlinck’s “Pelleas and Melisande.” Miss Anglin expressed her pleasure at the invitation, and it is said some arrangement may be made for a performance of the play in French after the Bernhardt road tour.
A special matinee performance of “La Tosca” by Mme. Bernhardt is announced for Friday afternoon at the Lyric Theatre.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: This afternoon Mr. Clemens chatted at a benefit given for the Russian Jews. Bernhardt played that Watteau one-act play L’Escarpolette, utterly charming, but before she went on she sat in the box with Mr. Clemens and it was a delight to watch those two rare geniuses chat. Bernhardt was in her man’s costume but sat with her legs on a chair and covered, and Mr. Clemens beautiful white head bent ever toward her, vibrant with life and strength and genius. And then the delight of his slow saunter onto the stage amid giant applause and cries of “bravo” [MTP TS 115].
Wm. Knabe & Co. , N.Y.C., wrote to Sam. Arthur Rubinstein, (1887-1982) Russian pianist, was to begin a US tour in January, 1906, and wished to give the proceeds of one of his recitals for the relief of Russian Jews, his brother being a political convict in Siberia. Could this benefit recital use Mark Twain’s name as a patron, along with fifteen or twenty others? On or just after this day Sam replied:
“Entirely in sympathy with the cause and if my name as a patron can be of any use will be glad to have you use it” [MTP].
Sam sent another Dec. 6 form letter for the occasion of his 70 birthday to Eduard Pötzl in Vienna, Austria. Sam added a short letter to the form:
Dear Pötzl: It is a beautiful & most valued appreciation, & I have read it with delight. The sound of your voice in print brings back Vienna, & you, & Letschititske [sic] to me & fills me with memories of blessed days! The will come no more—but we have had them, & that is something to be thankful for.
The congratulations are arriving from far & wide—from friends, & from strangers who are also friends—& I am very glad; I did not know there were so many [MTP].
Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote for Collier’s to Sam. He had been silent on the Oppenheimer treatment because he’d been down with the grippe, and now was taking a trip to New Orleans, but when he returned in late January
I will call upon you, and shall hope to proceed with the matter then directly. / Dr. S. Weir Mitchell has signified his willingness to give me the material which he has, bearing upon Bishop Potter’s participation in the fraud. I understand that Dr. Mitchell got the Bishop in a corner and made it rather unpleasant for him. This, of course, is confidential… [MTP].
Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote “Note for S.L.C.: / I saw Lauterbach to-day. He said, in re. The sale to Ogden, that, in case it were attacked, he thought it could be sustained….His advice for the present, summed up, is: ‘Stand pat’” [MTP].
John F. Hobbs of the Thirteen Club wrote to ask Sam for his presence as the Guest of Honor at it’s 24 Anniversary Banquet, Hotel Savoy, Saturday evening, Jan. 13, 1906 [MTP]. Note: Sam declined; see Jan. 13, 1906 entry for Hobbs’ follow up.
Winifred Ives wrote from NYC to ask Sam to speak at the Annual reception in the Babies Ward of the Post Graduate Hospital, Jan.19 at 4 p.m. [MTP].
W.B. Rundle wrote from Cherry Creek, Nev. Sending two views (not in file) of the “old Overland Stage road” which enabled Sam to write RI, and wishing “his years upon the earth be many” [MTP].
December 18 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam directed Lyon to answer Dihdwo Twe’s Dec. 15: “Would suggest that he bring Dr. Abbot—to talk it over, arrange date & time to suit everybody” [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs this as “on or after 15 Dec.” Estimated postal time is allowed here.
In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to Boyd Crumrine’s Dec. 16 request. “Mr. Clemens thinks that Mr. Bryan Clemens of St. Louis Mo would know about the ancestry. But that his own knowledge is vague and untrustworthy” [MTP].
Sam also replied to M. Fairchild’s Dec. 12 experience of reaching 80 by no strong drink or tobacco, staying active and living “in favor with God and man.” His tongue-in-cheek reply: “I realize, by your experience alas! that it doesn’t matter how recklessly & irrationally a man may live, he can never be sure of escaping old age” [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs this as “on or after 12 Dec.,” the date of Fairchild’s letter from St. Louis. Five days estimated postal time plus Sunday is allowed here.