February 13 Thursday – In the evening at 21 Fifth Ave. Clara Clemens gave a musical presentation to about 140 persons, accompanied by Miss Marie Nichols of Boston, a violinist, and Charles E. Wark, pianist The NY Times, Feb. 14, p 7, “Miss Clemens’s Musicale” lists the following 60 guests. See also Sam’s Feb. 14 to Jean.

• Mr. & Mrs. H.H. Rogers
• Mr. & Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.
• Mr. & Mrs. John E. Cowdin
• Mr. & Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder
• Mr. & Mrs. Edward Loomis
• Mr. & Mrs. John Alexander
• Mr. & Mrs. Schuyler Schieffelin
• Mr. & Mrs. H.W. Poor
• Mr. & Mrs. R. Fulton Cutting
• Dr. Cleveland Dodge and Miss Dodge
• Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Carnegie
• Mrs. John Rutherford Matthews
• Mr. & Mrs. John Howells
• Dr. & Mrs. Edward Quintard
• Mr. & Mrs. Albert Herter
• Mrs. Laurence Hutton
• Mr. & Mrs. Frank N. Doubleday
• Dr. & Mrs. G.M Tuttle
• Mr. & Mrs. Norman Hapgood
• Mrs. Henry Draper
• The Misses Thursby
• Mr. & Mrs. R.M. Johnson
• Mr. & Mrs. Henry Holt
• Mr. & Mrs. J. Newton Perkins
• Mr. & Mrs. Howard Van Lindern
• Mr. & Mrs. Carroll Beckwith
• Mr. & Mrs. Boudinot Keith
• Dr. & Mrs. Clarence C. Rice
• Mrs. John Day
• Mr. & Mrs. Myron W. Whitney
• Mr. & Mrs. Daniel French
• Mr. & Mrs. Clarence C. Buell

At midnight until 4 a.m. this day, Sam enjoyed a big supper and ball at Sherry’s Restaurant, NYC given by Robert J. Collier [Feb. 14 to Jean]. The New York Times reported the event:

COLLIE BALLET FOR COLLIER.

At a Dinner at Sherry’s Dogs and Dancers Amuse Guests.

Robert Collier gave an elaborate dinner last night at Sherry’s entertaining some thirty of his friends, among them many of the most prominent socially in town. Details about the dinner were not circulated, just because the affair was intended to be informal and an exceptionally cozy little matter.

It was not only a dinner; it was dinner and theatrical entertainment combined, for while the guests dined they were also amused with various novelties.

The dinner and entertainment last night was given in two of the rooms on the second floor at Sherry’s. The two apartments had been arranged in Spanish fashion, one representing the Maison de Madrid, and the other the Court of the Royal Palace.

In the outer room the thirty guests sat at tables, surrounding the apartment on three sides. On each table were roses, and in the centre of each was an outspread Japanese parasol. The effect, with the soft lighting, was very beautiful.

At the further end of the room at the most prominent place sat Mark Twain, in ordinary evening dress. On his right was Ethel Barrymore, and near by were Mr. and Mrs. Collier and Richard Harding Davis. Alla Nazimova was at a table on the left side of the apartment as one faced Mark Twain. Among the others present were Mr. and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Astor, Mr. and Mrs. William Waldorf Astor, and Mr. and Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney.

The sensation of the evening, however, was the Collie ballet from “The Top o’ th’ World.” The dance never went better. And yet the dogs were hungry. When it was all over, and each girl had asked her pet whether he would be her little doggie dear, King, forgetting all decorum, ran to the centre table, where Mark Twain had sat, and there helped himself to ice cream. He stood on his hind legs and licked away complacently.

It was curious to see the guests, men and women, smoking cigarettes and watching the girls and the dogs. Not all the women smoked, but many of them did. The other chief entertainment introduced into the dinner was the dancing of a prima ballerina from the Manhattan Opera House.

Sam’s A.D. of Feb. 19 gave comment on Collier’s party:

The party at Sherry’s was continuously interesting, from the beginning to the end. It was given by Robert Collier. He, and that sweet and beautiful girl, his wife, were at Clara’s musicale, and we departed for Sherry’s in their automobile at midnight. It was a large company, and was made up of well-known names. Among them was John Hay’s poet-daughter, Mrs.  Payne Whitney. I had not seen her since she was a little child. Neither her mother’s nor her husband’s limitless millions have smothered her literary gift or beguiled her into neglecting it. Among them, also, was her sister-in-law, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, who is likewise staggering under weighty millions, but slaves daily and enthusiastically and faithfully at her statuary work, like the loftiest minded poor devotee of the great arts in the land. Twice, under the concealment of fictitious names, she has carried off the first prize in important public competitions. Prince Troubetskoi was there, a fine man and diligent and successful artist. I have known him some time. His wife is Amélie Rives, the poet. The dear and lovely Ethel Barrymore, actress, was there. She is the sole support of her widowed mother’s family, and has been working hard and making and saving a deal of money these many months, and now misfortune has befallen her. A few nights ago, when she was absent at the theatre, a burglar entered her apartment and carried off every valuable thing she had in the world, including her accumulated money, which she kept at home because in these disastrous and panicky days she was afraid to trust it in a bank.

Nazimova, the illustrious Russian actress was there, a most interesting character; I had not seen her before, either on the stage or elsewhere. She talks in easy and flowing and correct English, and she was playing in it acceptably two and a half months after her tongue’s first contact with it.  She said she was born and reared in Switzerland, and at eleven didn’t know a Russian word; then she took lessons and acquired her native tongue by the same laborious processes required in mastering a foreign one.

I was at home by half-past four in the morning, in bed at five, asleep at six, and ready for breakfast at eight—refreshed and ready for more activities. They were liberally furnished, and have been industriously carried on ever since [MTP]. Note: Paul Prince Troubetskoy (1866- 1938), Russian sculptor b. Italy, son of a Russian nobleman and an American woman.

Sam’s A.D. for this day recounted the eight days on Bermuda with his latest Angelfish, Margaret Blackmer, a donkey named Maude, and a little black boy, Reginald. See  Feb. 1 for excerpt.  

Isabel Lyon’s journal:  The King has a wee blood vessel broken on his eyeball, & it is inflamed.

Santa’s concert was a great success. Mr. Melville Stone told me that anything in the world that he can do for her he will. There were some lovely people here. 140 I should say, & after everything was over I understood the hitches that occurred—the waiters got drunk.

Mrs. Riggs [Kate Douglas Riggs] recommended a book for the King, ‘Uncle William’ by Jeannette [sic] Lee [MTP IVL TS: 21-22; Gribben 404]. Note: Jennette Barbour (Perry) Lee, Uncle William, The Man Who Was Shif’less (1906).

Jerome Lynch wrote to praise Sam’s last Autobiographical segment. Lynch knew all about the men of the Enterprise; his father was buried at Gold Hill. He also urged Sam to answer in a “permanent way” Senator Stewart’s article in this week’s Saturday Evening Post (see Feb. 15 entry for review of ex-Senator William M. Stewart’s account.) [MTP]. After Feb. 13 Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam, writing on Lynch’s letter Mr. Clemens is much obliged but haven’t heard of it. “I [am] much obliged for the reason that while I don’t think that so insignificant a person as Mr Senator Stewart could provoke me to reach down & hit him I have a strong curiosity to see his article because I knew him so long & so well, both the inside of him & the outside of him. Of course I don’t answer such things. This policy I learned a long time ago with that ancient Stewart was a young creature [”] [MTP].

William Augustus Croffut wrote from Washington, D.C. to ask Sam if he should start a movement to help him in his financial difficulties, which he’d read about in the papers. He disclosed that he was born in the house next to the one Sam was building in Redding [MTP].

John F. Mills wrote from West Point, Ind. to Sam. For 30 years Mills had wanted to thank Clemens for his books and now his Autobiography was at hand. Each book from IA on had made him “eager for more.” He’d pasted ‘every scrap” that came his way about Twain. His 13 year old daughter cried over the account of Susy’s death. “Twenty five years ago, in Dakota Territory, I met a man who said his name was Charles. Y. Redmond, and who claimed to be the original of ‘the dissolute author’ in ‘Roughing It.’ … He gave his own version of the fake ‘hold up.’ To-day I read in this week’s issue of the Philadelphia ‘Saturday Evening Post,’ Ex-Senator Stewart’s account. It is time for him to go away back—yours sincerely…” [MTP]. Note: See Feb. 15 entry for review of ex-Senator William M. Stewart’s account.

George L. Robinson wrote on NY Sewage Disposal Co. letterhead to Sam, acknowledging with thanks receipt of Sam’s letter of Feb. 11, “enclosing check for $100., at the request of my father, Mr. George M. Robinson” [MTP].

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote to Miss Lyon about the letters from his late father to Clemens [MTP].