February 27 Saturday – Adah Isaacs Menken (1835?-1868) arrived in Virginia City. In Sept. 1863 Sam saw her in one of her sixty San Francisco performances of Mazeppa, where she rode horseback in nothing but flesh-colored body-tights. Sam wasn’t impressed with her performances. Adah invited Sam to dinner in her hotel room with Dan De Quille and the Bohemian poet Ada Clare (Jane McElhinney, 1836?-1874). Menken’s current husband, her third, poet and dramatic critic Orpheus C. Kerr (Robert H. Newell 1836-1901), was not allowed in the room. The Jewish actress had also been married to John C. Heenan, “Benicia Boy,” the prizefighter, as well as Alexander Isaacs Menken [Benson 94-5].
According to De Quille (this may have been a tall tale) the “evening terminated when Clemens, aiming a kick at one of the actress’s numerous dogs, accidentally ‘hit the Menken’s pet corn, causing her to bound from her seat, throw herself on a lounge and roll and roar in agony’” [MTL 1: 277-8n5; Powers, MT A Life 136].
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Day By Day Acknowledgment
Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.