January 23 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote his aphorism about honors, deserved and not deserved, to Miss Eulabee Dix [MTP]. Note: Eulabee Dix (1878-1961), American artist who painted watercolors on ivory for miniature works of art. Born in Illinois, Dix moved to NYC in 1899 and studied under various artists. She did commissions for well known persons, including Ethel Barrymore. In 1908 Dix did the last painting of Mark Twain from real life. Note the Oxford gown in insert of miniature: It is now in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute. In Looking for Eulabee Dix by Jo Ann Ridley, Twain is quoted as saying he had only previously sat for one miniature portrait in Italy.
Sam also wrote to Marcella Sembrich:
Dear Madame Sembrich:
Eight or ten ladies will assemble at tables at the above address at 1 p.m. February 11 to partake of what Mrs. Kate Douglas Riggs calls my “doe luncheon,” & which I call my “dear- luncheon.” I am the only animal of my sex present on these solemn occasions. And I am in command: Clara is only a subordinate.
Will you do me the honor to come? I hope you will. / Sincerely yours [MTP].
The New York Times, p. 4, “Pilgrims to Dine Reid” announced a dinner in honor of Ambassador to England Whitelaw Reid to be held sometime in February. Mark Twain was noted as having agreed to speak at the dinner.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Englishman. / The Bermuda tickets have come, & Ashcroft is to take the King. He will be away 12 days. Mother must come back to me.
Today I telephoned out to Redding telling AB that the King is going to Bermuda & that he needn’t come down. Somehow all my confidence is gone, & I do not greatly want to see him. My anxiety over the Howells letters incident seems almost to be making me ill. My philosophy is gone.
We had a glorious snow storm last night. & Today the King has spent a good deal of time at the windows, for he loves to watch the snow & its affects.
I played tonight to the King, his favorites, Chopin Nocturn Op 37 [,] No. 2 Schuberts Impromptu.
The adagio movement of Beethoven Sonata Pathetique, the Lohengrin Wedding March, and then he went gently up to his room, with a green woolen afghan falling from his shoulders. I found my heart & soul flooding over with the tears that have been moving too heavy for me all day [MTP: IVL TS 14].
Emily W. Burbank wrote from NYC to express her joy at being summoned to the Doe Luncheon [MTP].
Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Miss Lyon that she rec’d her letter and would inform John W. Postgate to go ahead and try to make a play out of JA [MTP].
Edmund Stedman’s female cousin (unnamed) wrote to Sam relating the last moments of Stedman’s life, realizing “what an irreparable loss you feel in his sudden ‘going home’” [MTP]. Note: Stedman was not one of Sam’s favorites and this editor speculates the loss was not quite irreparable.
Martha Thompson wrote from Bonaire, Houston Co. Ga., to ask Sam if she could write to him again for advice [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Jan. 28, ‘08”