January 8 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote to Harriet E. Whitmore (Mrs. Franklin G. Whitmore). Excerpted here only the passages dealing with the Clemens family:

Your sweet and most unexpected gift delights me much. I have not had a chance to read a word in it, for after cutting its pages, I took it in to M . Clemens who has been wretchedly ill for 3 weeks—He took the book from me—Saying of its author—“An able cuss who writes deliciously—” and today he remarked that the book is “ever so charming.” In the January number of the American Review of Reviews, there is an interesting portrait of le Fallienne, and if you haven’t seen it, it is quite worth seeing—An exquisite face—the face of an artist—

Perhaps you may be interested to know how very entirely M . Clemens absorbs all my time— every minute of it—even my evenings. I attend to an infinite number of things for him, and when he is lonely and restless we play cards. Play cards? Why I play with him all day Sunday even. He is delicious; this morning he had a run of very bad luck and biting his cigar hard he said “Christ couldn’t take tricks with the kind of cards you give me.”

He is still in bed, and we make a card table of a down pillow—He calls the King of Clubs —“that damned orphan.” because it is always appearing as a singleton in his hand. Oh darling M . Whitmore you have given me all this joy, and truly I am the wealthiest woman ever. There is a side to the life here that is most exquisite and hallowed; and Mr. Clemens lives much in the past,—There are days when he restlessly paces the “lonely house,” and he has not yet begun any real work—beyond a short article on “Copyright” that appeared in N. American Review for January. The house is not yet entirely settled. Some of the wall papering must be done over, because the decorator employed is a woman of execrable taste,—and a great deal of the paper is an “offense” to M . Clemens , But the house is really charming—and living here with mother so close to me is a great delight to me. I have very little to do with Jean—never go out with her anymore; you see M . Clemens wants his secretary on deck—and where he can have her services when he needs them. Jean is pretty well, not entirely so; and we have encouraging news from Clara, if the nurses can be believed. M . Clemens has been ill enough to have a nurse who is still here. He had serious bronchitis with congestion—slight—of one lung—and then the worst of all finishing touches, the gout—that has inflamed and swollen his feet, and he has suffered very much [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today Mr. Clemens walked lamely into the next room, his study, but he could not stay long. First he shaved away his 3 weeks beard that made him look like Thomas Carlyle. We played cards later—and his hands were so bad that he remarked “Christ couldn’t take tricks with the kind of cards I hold.” He is delicious. Mother came in and we had a dish of tea in my room, and Mother—saint Mother—mended a pair of stockings for me—on Sunday [MTP: TS 36]. Note: Lyon repeated things put in her above letter.