March 28 Wednesday – In the a.m. Charlotte Teller Johnson returned to 21 Fifth Ave. and read her play Joan d’Arc to Clemens. It was the beginning of almost daily visits between the two and much correspondence. See Mar. 27 entry.
Clemens’ A.D. for the day: Orion Clemens’ personality—His adventure at the house of Dr. Meredith—Orion’s three o’clock a.m. call on young lady—Death of Clemens’ father, just after having been made County Judge—Sam Clemens’ small income after having become bankrupt through maladministration of Charles L. Webster [AMT 1: 451-455].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Off Mr. Clemens went at 7 o’clock to dine with Miss Winifred Holt & talk over things that are to be done tomorrow evening at the meeting for the blind. Barry & Gerald & Gerome [Brush] dined here, & after dinner we 6 went up to the Armory at 94th Street, forever away, & saw some pretty good, certainly interesting, riding, interesting because the men who rode were untrained & not under a fearful training discipline & you felt the naturalness of it. A young and delightfulish Mrs. Johnson came in yesterday [Mar. 27] to ask if Mr. Clemens would care to meet Mr. Tschaykoffski, the Russian Revolutionary agitator. He came & Mr. Clemens had a good talk with him, but discouraged him a bit I fear. Mrs. Johnson herself is a clever creature, I believe, for she attracts you & she told me how for a year she has been working on a Joan of Arc play for Maude Adams [MTP TS 59-60]. Note: Charlotte was evidently still introducing herself as “Mrs. Johnson” while writing under the name of Charlotte Teller.
On this day or the next Sam wrote a letter to Nikolai V. Chaikovsky (1851-1926) (often seen spelled in various ways: Tchaikovsky, Tchaykoffsky, etc.) that ran in the N.Y. Times for Mar. 30, 1906:
Dear Mr. Tchaykoffsky: I thank you for the honor of the invitation, but I am not able to accept it, because on Thursday evening I shall be presiding at a meeting whose object is to find remunerative work for certain classes of our blind who would gladly support themselves if they had the opportunity.
My sympathies are with the Russian revolution, of course. It goes without saying. I hope it will succeed, and now that I have talked with you I take heart to believe it will. Government by falsified promises, by lies, by treacheries, and by the butcher-knife for the aggrandizement of a single family of drones and its idle and vicious kin has been borne quite long enough in Russia, I should think, and it is to be hoped that the roused nation, now rising in its strength, will presently put an end to it and set up the republic in its place. Some of us, even of the white headed, may live to see the blessed day when Czars and Grand Dukes will be as scarce there as I trust they are in heaven.
Most sincerely yours,
MARK TWAIN
Note: Chaikovsky was born in Vyatka, Russia, and formed a group advocating revolutionary socialist ideals, which became the Narodnik movement. After some divergence of opinions with the group he moved to the U.S. and set up a socialist commune in Kansas in the 1870s. The group failed and he moved to London to write and raise money. He returned to Russia in 1905 and opposed the Bolsheviks. At this time, along with Gorky and others, he was active in the US in trying to raise money for revolutionary goals. He was no relation to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky the composer.
Sam inscribed a copy of IA with an aphorism for Mrs. Catherine Haley: “Mrs. Catherine Haley. Do your duty today and repent tomorrow. Truly Yours, Mark Twain. March 28/06.” [ABE books: Peter L. Stern & Co., Boston June 19, 2009].
Asa Don Dickinson wrote for the Bay Ridge Branch, Brooklyn Public Library. Sam inserted this letter in his A.D. for Apr. 9, 1906.
Your letter of the 26 inst. rec’d this moment. As I have now been transferred to the above address, it has been a long time reaching me.
I have tried to be wary and wise and am very grateful to you for your reticence. The poor old B.P.L. has achieved some very undesirable notoriety. I thought my head was coming off when I heard from my chief on the telephone night before last. But yesterday he began to be amused, I think, at the tea pot tempest. [She assured Clemens that his books had not been restricted from short fiction, only not placed with books in the Children’s rooms.]
I am looking forward with great eagerness to seeing and hearing you tomorrow night at the Waldorf. … I am very sorry to have caused you so much annoyance through reporters, but be sure that I have said nothing nor will say anything to them about the contents of that letter. And please don’t you tell on me! / Yours…[MTP].
Hugh Gordon Miller for the Fulton Monument Assoc. wrote to Sam, enclosing an article on Fulton which might be helpful in Sam’s upcoming lecture, postponed from Apr. 10 to the 19 [MTP].
March 28 ca. – Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote to Sam. The letter was inserted in the A.D. of Apr. 9. It included a clipping (in French) from a newspaper there. The clipping announced, dateline NY Mar. 27, that the directors of the Brooklyn Library put two of Twain’s books on the restricted list for children under the age of fifteen. Picard was surprised by the article, but observed that in France such an article would make everyone go out to buy the book. She closed with: “I know your pen well. I know it has never been dipped in anything but clean, clear ink” [MTP].
Sam replied to a Mar. 26 the invitation by E.E. Olcott to take part in a Mar. 31 launching of a new steamer of the Hudson River Day Line. Sam had two other engagements for that day and evening [MTP].