March 8 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Mr. Coburn called and brought some very wonderful photographs. George Meredith, Andrew Lang, Mrs. Ward, Edmund Gosse and many others. He brought some landscapes too, and when I showed one of some mighty trees to Mr. Clemens, at first he couldn’t make out the subject and when I told him what it was he said, “I thought it was the dinosaurus coming down town.”
March 9 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Mr. Gilder and Dorothea dined here. Dorothea looked very sweet in a little marquise bodice, brilliantly charmingly flowered. She left early to go to a concert but Mr. Gilder stayed on and was very interesting in his talk about Roosevelt as a reader, and as a man with a phenominal [sic] memory. Only as a politician is he not admirable [MTP: TS 43].
Philip Cabot wrote for Henry Copley Greene to Miss Lyon, acknowledging the signed leases from Clemens, and returning one signed copy for Sam’s files [MTP].
March 10 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Elizabeth Garver Jordan (1867-1947) editor of Harper’s Bazar.
March 11 Saturday – Sam wrote the following concerning his birthday. This piece was later found in an autograph album. Note Sam’s comparison of himself to George Washington:
Nov 30, 1835.
March 12 Sunday – Sam inscribed in Clara Clemens’ copy of JA (volume 17, Hillcrest ed.): Every one is a moon, & has / a dark side which he / never shows to any body. / Mark Twain / March 12, 1905.” [Sotheby’s, Sept. 1962].
March 13 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane. Only the bottom of the page survives: “Sue dear, beg for me with St. Peter if you get there first. He will remember me as the young fellow who tried for his place & couldn’t pass the examinations—at that time” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Muriel M. Pears, now in Washington, D.C.
March 14 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam replied to Joe Twichell’s Mar. 13.
Dear Joe,—I have a Puddn’head maxim:
“When a man is a pessimist before 48 he knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.”
March 15 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to an unidentified woman (possibly Lucy J. Taylor, who wrote for the Quarter Club on Feb. 17 asking for signatures on Twain’s books) explaining Sam was not well enough to autograph “so many books,” but he would be glad to “autograph the ten extra volumes if that will do” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today Mr. Coburn came and photoed Jean and then he took six more of
March 16 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 17 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Mr. Vernon called to see Mr. Clemens this morning” [MTP TS 8].
March 18 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Herr Heinick came for dinner tonight. The table talk wasn’t very brilliant for Mr. Clemens was tired (?) or didn’t like the man—(since, I’ve found that he didn’t like the man, for he had expected to find an old and wise professor.)
Life in this way is so vitally interesting. The hours are like pearls in a string and I hope that the cord that holds them is a strong one [MTP: TS 46].
March 19 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 20 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Jean and I went up to the little Carnegie Theatre to see Mary Lawton in a rehearsal of Magda. It was harrowing enough, for the director’s criticism of the young actors was scathing and heart searching in sarcasms. It’s the only way though to bring them into perfection, and when we came home after 4½ hours of it we were too exhausted to eat our dinner, too exhausted to hear intelligently Mr. Clemens reading of the Bagheera Story.
March 21 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Tonight Mr. Clemens read a very interesting unpublishable sketch. Unpublishable because it is what an old darkey says of the universal brotherhood of man—and how it couldn’t ever be, not even in heaven—for there are only white angels there and in the old darkey’s vision the niggers were all sent around to the back door. It’s a wonderful little sketch but it wouldn’t do for the clergy. They couldn’t stand it. It’s too true.
March 22 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 23 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 24 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 25 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Duneka says of the Satan letter ‘That it is great[’]. Boy come today with proof. / Count Lewenhaupt began treatment today for Mr. Clemens—$2.00 a treatment. / Mr. Clemens dined with Mr & Mrs. Rogers” [MTP TS 9]
March 26 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Dear Col. Higginson,—I early learned that you would be my neighbor in the Summer & I rejoiced, recognizing in you & your family a large asset. I hope for frequent intercourse between the two households. I shall have my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the rest-cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk Conn. & we shall not see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the middle of October.
March 26 – early April – In a supplement to a June, 1913 American Post review, the tale is told of Sam attending a performance of Benjamin Chapin playing Lincoln on stage. NY Times (Mar. 25, p. X1) gives the first week’s performance began on Mar. 26. The article and a letter (uncollected) Sam sent to Chapin’s secretary.
MARK TWAIN AND PARTY
ATTEND “LINCOLN”
By One of the Party
March 27 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
My head is full of obstetrical hooks and slants and jabs for today I began to study shorthand. I don’t see how anyone can ever put soul into that sort of writing. It would seem wrong to put down Mr. Clemens’s thoughts like that—but it’s for Mr. Clemens’s thoughts that I’m trying to learn it. It is very lonely without Saint Mother, but who am I that I should be lonely in the presence of a loveliness like Mr. Clemens’s [MTP: TS 47].
March 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Seymour Eaton.
March 29 Wednesday – Sam read his essay “William Dean Howells” to the household. In April he would send this piece and the final MS of Christian Science to Frederick A.Duneka at Harper’s [Hill 101].
Sam wrote to William H. Pearson for the N.Y. Produce Exchange, Safe Deposit and Storage Co. His letter is not extant but is referred to in Pearson’s reply of the following day, Mar. 30. See entry.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Tonight Mr. Clemens read us an appreciation that he has written of Mr. Howells. It is beautiful, the strength of his pen is marvelous” [MTP: TS 47].
March 30 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Daniel Carter Beard.
Dear Dan Beard: / You did not stay too long. That is settled.
2. I don’t think the [War] prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth. (I am offering a very small laugh at the Rockefeller-American-Board comedy. Now, slight as it is, I would not blame Harvey if he should say it isn’t good policy to print it; for he is responsible to his Co & should not permit laughs which could injure its business.)
March 31 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tomorrow Mother is coming up.
The pot hooks do not stay in my brain for the brain is deranged.
“Passed Michael Kelly with a load of shlabs.” That’s what the Irishman passed after he took a pill. It must be so for Katie said it [MTP: TS 49].
Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: Lewenhaupt [likely designating an osteopathic treatment for Clemens]
Mr. Clemens received a reply to his letter to Dr. Hale, & he sent the reply with a letter note to Col. Harvey to interest him as a publisher—perhaps—