• August 28, 1905 Monday

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    August 28 Monday – At Boston, Mass. Sam wrote to daughter Clara still recovering in Norfolk, Conn.

    I arrived unfatigued, and with my lameness almost gone. I have had my hair cut, have sent a telegram to Jean; shall take a bath, now, and be in bed in a few minutes or more. In spite of the gout I had a most delightful visit with you—entirely delightful. You look extravagantly pretty and sweet to-day—you were the decoration of that lunch table.

    With lots of love, … [MTP]. Note: telegram not extant.

    Isabel Lyon’s Journal:

  • August 29, 1905 Tuesday

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    August 29 Tuesday – Sam left Boston on an early train to Dublin, N.H., about a three-hour trip.

    Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens arrived today, from Norfolk, quite white and showing the traces of his suffering. After his lunch he went wearily, wearily to his bed, and he slept. He is so good. This evening a telegram [not extant] came from Mr. Tayler of the Boston Globe officially announcing “Peace” and asking for a word from Mr. Clemens. He sat up in bed and wrote the word, such a strong word—and at 10 o’clock I telephoned it to Boston [see below] …

  • August 30, 1905 Wednesday

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    August 30 Wednesday – Sam was back in Dublin, N.H.

    Isabel Lyon’s journal:There’s a copy of the Boston Globe here—and each man’s opinion of peace hops gleefully along on the heels of the last speaker. Same thought, same Hurrah! Mr. Clemens’s words alone stand as the words of a man thinking out the problem for himself and daring to speak his thought. In fact he couldn’t not speak his thought, for his thoughts are like great blazing torches, bursting into flame by force of the life within them and unextinguishable [MTP TS 92].

  • August 31, 1905 Thursday

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    August 31 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Katharine B. Clemens (Mrs. James Ross Clemens) now in Cobourg, Canada.

    I am just back from a gout-smitten 3-weeks’ visit to Clara in her rest-cure in Norfolk, Conn; & short as the distance is, I find the travel worse than the gout. I shan’t take any more journeys.

    St. Louisians do not seem to mind railroading at all—they come here every summer, & they have houses of their own here. I suppose Miss Tracy saw Jean, not Clara, but Jean is absent & I can’t find out.

  • September 1905

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    September – Miss Carrie Rosenheim of Baltimore, Md. wrote to Sam, calling him a “dear” and asking for an autograph [eBay item 230470822748, May 5, 2010]. Note: not extant but referred to in sale of Sam’s Oct. 9 reply.

    Joseph Gilder’s article, “Glimpses of John Hay,” ran in Critic p, 248-52. Tenney: “Briefly tells of an evening with MT, Hay, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Adams, in Washington, January 1886” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p. 331].

  • September 1, 1905 Friday

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    September 1 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Aug. 19 of William Hill. Sam was not well enough to write letters, she wrote, and he was seldom moved to write anything, and what he did write belonged to Harper & Brothers as he had a “very rigid contract” [MTP].

    Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “I have written to Miss Bright that I cannot, cannot, cannot write that article. Evey bit of me rebels, every bit of my mind and body” [MTP TS 92]. Note: see Aug. 26 entry.

  • September 2, 1905 Saturday

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    September 2 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote per Lyon to Ralph W. Ashcroft, again warming him not to put Clemens’ name in any letters; he advised him again not to send any letters without submitting them to William Woodward Baldwin, the American Plasmon Co.’s attorney. “They are awful letters & will do you great harm” [MTP]. Note: Ashcroft had wanted to send a letter out to interested parties including Sam’s name and pasting a picture of a crowing rooster after announcing initial victories in court over John Hays Hammond and his allies in the company.

  • September 3, 1905 Sunday

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    September 3 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Norfolk, Conn. mentioning the $2,600 Orchestrelle, which had been disassembled in New York and shipped to Dublin some time before.

    P.S. / Sept. 3.

  • September 4, 1905 Monday

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    September 4 Monday – Len G. Westland wrote from London, Ontario Canada to offer Sam his “sincere admiration” and “best wishes for a long life…I raise my hat to you sir” [MTP]. Note: a day or two later ? Sam replied: “And, I, also, take off my hat to you; and with many thanks to you for what you have said”

    Isabel Lyon’s journal:This morning Mr. Clemens sent for me to talk over the arrangements for a talk before some Boston Club—a woman’s club, and he spoke of all that femaleness as a “Bull fight!”

  • September 5, 1905 Tuesday

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    September 5 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam replied by telegram to one from George B. Harvey that he was unable to come the Metropolitan Club dinner on Sept. 7 for the Russian envoys who negotiated a favorable treaty for Russia in the Russo-Japanese war. Sam would follow an explanation by letter [MTP]. Note: see Harvey’s original telegram and Lyon’s entry below.

    George B. Harvey sent a telegram to Sam:

  • September 6, 1905 Wednesday

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    September 6 Wednesday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote Koy-Lo Co. letterhead to Sam, enclosing a letter from attorney Edward Lauterbach, who did not think Ashcroft had jeopardized himself in writing to Hammond. Ashcroft also enclosed a cartoon and a “want ad” from the NY Herald which he swore he had not placed [MTP].

  • September 7, 1905 Thursday

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    September 7 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

    I want to send you Twichell’s letter, but it is lost—not permanently, I merely can’t find it. I was going to carry it to you when I thought I was going to Fairhaven from Norfolk, & so I must have put it away too carefully. I will find it between now & next time I see you.

    I do not get entirely over my lameness, & the gout has never kept up its threatenings so long before. Certainly the righteous do have a rough time of it in this world, I wish I was like Rice.

  • September 8, 1905 Friday

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    September 8 Friday – E. Hampden-Cook, Congregational Minister in Sandbach, Cheshire, England wrote to Sam, upset that many in England were turning away from traditional churches to Christian Science. He’d contacted Chatto & Windus hoping to print Sam’s Christian Science article from the Oct. 1899 Cosmopolitan in a cheap brochure, which he could distribute to the masses. Sam’s English publishers had replied to him that their arrangements would not allow them to give their permission [MTP]. Note: Sam’s response is estimated to be ca. Sept.

  • September 10, 1905 Sunday

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    September 10 Sunday – Sam’s Sept. 5 note to George B. Harvey, explaining why he could not meet the Russian envoys (who had negotiated the Portsmouth Treaty) at a dinner at the Metropolitan Club last Thursday, Sept. 7 was published in the New York Times, p. 2, “Twain’s Tribute to Envoys.” See Sept. 5.

    Isabel Lyon’s journal: His morning Mr. Clemens read aloud to me some more of the [his] Gospel.

  • September 11, 1905 Monday

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    September 11 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. and Mrs. Sumner, Mrs. Greene and Miss Greene dined here. Mr. Clemens wasn’t well. He is suffering from indigestion and he wasn’t himself and everything went wrong.

    Jean went to look at the Upton house for another year.

    I went with Miss Greene for a little drive up to Mr. Pumpelly’s wonderful height [MTP TS 96]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Jean went to look at the Upton house with a view to taking it for next summer & she likes it” [MTP TS 27].

  • September 12, 1905 Tuesday

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    September 12 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

    Jean—Bathroom, 10 AM. Mr. Clemens has been in bed all day living on toasts and gruels and he is nervous. The indigestion seems better but its traces remain. A letter came today from Col. Harvey in which he said that he showed the letter Mr. Clemens wrote, in response to the invitation to the banquet to the Russians, to Mr. Witte. He couldn’t read it—so it was translated for him and he asked for it to take it back to Russia to his Czar [MTP TS 96].

  • September 13, 1905 Wednesday

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    September 13 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “A wooly game! Today Mrs. Henderson came with two of her delightful children. Mr. Clemens isn’t very well—he is on a strict diet of plasmon and broths and he looks white and badly” [MTP TS 96, 98].

    Albert Lee for Collier’s Weekly wrote to Sam, enclosing a check for $150 for payment of his article on Christian Citizenship. “We have received a number of letters concerning it, among others one from a gentleman who sends you a ticket to Heaven, which I submit herewith” [MTP].

  • September 14, 1905 Thursday

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    September 14 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

    Today I’m regretting the hours that have to go into the fashioning of costumes. This afternoon Mr. Sterling called and Secretary Hancock [sic Hitchcock], he went up to see Mr. Clemens and later Mr. Thayer came in, to be followed by Mrs. [Alice] Pearmain and Mr. Montague. The three men went up to talk with Mr. Clemens and in his whiteness he held an audience there. I think it was good for him for he had been saying that he feels as if he had sawdust in his brain.

  • September 15, 1905 Friday

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    September 15 Friday – Dublin, N.H.: Sam wrote to Clara Clemens. Clärchen dear, I have just written the [Hotel] Touraine that you & Miss Alling may possibly arrive Tuesday the 19th ; & to take care of you. I have told Katy you are going to New York the 20th; you will see her there.

  • September 16, 1905 Saturday

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    September 16 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam replied to Lilian W. Aldrich’s Sept. 15:

    Dear Mrs. T.B.: / You don’t need the secretary. Mr. Rogers does not see very many of the business letters that go to 26 Broadway, but he sees & reads all the personal letters that go there addressed to him.

    I am going to hope with all my might that I can go from another friend’s house in Boston about the 27th or the 28th of October & have a day with you; but I’ll have to excuse Jean—she would be too much responsibility for me.

  • September 17, 1905 Sunday

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    September 17 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Learned came in for a dish of tea, and then Mr. Pearmain and Mr. Montague came in too later—and the 3 of them sat and talked in front of the open fire, and they smoked. Jean went off to the Henderson’s and Mr. Clemens read an article to me that he has been working on lately. Oh its about the Interpretation of the Deity, so wonderful and strong, and true like every bit of that wonderful brain of his [MTP TS 98, 100].

  • September 18, 1905 Monday

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    September 18 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “The Privilege of the Grave” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi, 55-60].

    In Dublin, N.H. Sam also replied to the ca. Sept. 15 from Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865-1932), born Marie Augusta Davey in New Orleans, leading actress from childhood on, and also a playwright and activist for artistic freedom.

  • September 19, 1905 Tuesday

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    September 19 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Lyon sent Sam’s biographical sketch by Moffett to the Knickerbocker Publishing Co. Sam’s letter with enclosure is not extant but referred to in the Publisher’s Sept. 20 letter [MTP].

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