December 26 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.) in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. After musing over who it was that called and said her name was Mrs. Rogers, Sam offered this fictional dialogue about going to Bermuda in summer.

Naturally I came home yesterday almost entirely convinced that Bermuda-in-summer & suicide are interchangeable terms. By midnight I had almost come to the conclusion to retire from the experiment.

December 27 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Nov. 9 from David M. Jones.

Dear Father Jones: /It is a pleasant & welcome greeting and I thank you cordially for it.

December 28 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

“Puppy chew the soap.”

“Mr Clemens do you care to contribute to the Booth Memorial Fund?”

“No I don’t. I hate this idea of celebrities scratching each other’s backs & I don’t want anybody to be asked to contribute anything—for me!” [MTP TS 154-155].

December 29 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

December 30 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

December 31 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a postcard to Andrew Carnegie and Louise W. Carnegie. “Unto / Mrs. Carnegie / & St. Andrew / a happy New Year & repetitions of it.† Mark”  [MTP].

Sam also wrote a postcard to Gertrude Natkin at 138 W. 98 N.Y.C.: “A happy New Year to you, dear Marjorie, & many repetitions of the like!” [MTP]. Note: see Feb. 20, 1907 for her delayed reply.

The New York Times, p.1, reported on the New Year’s Eve party thrown at his home for Clara Clemens.

Christian Science Published, Flying Trips to Bermuda – Katonah Visits – Clara Tours

Damned Human Race Club – Suppression of Noises – Lease Tuxedo Park House

Aldrich Dies – Redding Plans – Last Trip to Elmira – 1 Angelfish – Jamestown

Saturday A.M. Club Reunion – Lost at Sea! – “Oxford Would Confer…”– Annapolis

Actors Fund Fair – Meets “Charlie”– Stevedores Shout – G.B. Shaw

January – James Logan (1852-1929) mayor of Worcester, Mass (1908-1911) wrote to Sam, sending him a translation of Omar Kayyam by Eben Francis Thompson [MTP] Inscriptions: the portrait of E. F. Thompson is signed “Faithfully yours” by Thompson. Volume is inscribed: “To ‘Mark Twain’/Please accept this book as a partial payment on account for the many happy hours and hearty laughs which you have given me. With kind regards/faithfully yours/James Logan./Worcester, Mass.,/Jany. 1907.” Volume also signed: “SL. Clemens/1907.” Note: See Feb.

January 1 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean, about how he rang in the New Year:  

Jean dear, we had grand times last night: “Sham,” played by Clara—burlesquing grand opera— assisted by [Witter] Bynner & George Gilder & Miss Burbank—most delightfully played. “Pain” played by me as a baby, with Miss Burbank for the mother & Miss Lyon as nurse. “Champagne” played by Bynner & me as the Siamese Twins” ( I getting drunk on wine drunk by him.)

January 2 Wednesday – Sam, Joe Twichell, and Isabel Lyon sailed on the S.S. Bermudian for Bermuda for a “flying trip,” a three-day stay. The voyage now took two days; 30 years before it had taken three [D. Hoffman 69; MTHHR 577]. Note: The steamer Bermudian, a twin-screw vessel, was first launched in Jan. 1905 and continued in service until WWI. Sam would take this same ship to Bermuda in Jan. 1908. See insert S.S. Bermudian.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: We sail. Bermudian

January 3 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

It has been such a sweet, long, drowsing day, with a beautiful smooth sea; the King has slept, & so has Mr. Twichell …(there goes the dinner trumpet.) the picking up of loose ragged ends; getting ready for Hobby who will look after the mail while I’m away; & getting ready for & over the party. Of course I have relaxed.

January 4 Friday – The S.S. Bermudian reached Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda at 6 a.m. and docked about 9:30 a.m. The Clemens party registered at the Princess Hotel, next to the water just west of town. D. Hoffman writes:

January 5 Saturday – Bermuda: the Clemens party of Sam, Joe Twichell and Isabel Lyon chartered a boat, the Nautilus, and spend two and a half hours sailing in and out of the bays and inlets. Lyon details:

January 6 Sunday – Bermuda, the last day. The group spent the day riding through Paget and Warwick, then to Hamilton Parish and to Joyce’s Dock Caves, which were “brilliantly lit with acetylene gas, showing stalactites of enormous size.” Later in the day Sam and Joe tried to find places they’d been back in 1877, when they stayed in a boardinghouse run by Emily Kirkham. They asked about and found the woman, now 48. This search became a subject for his Autobiography, and evidently Sam dictated segments to Miss Lyon during the trip and the voyage home [D.

January 7 Monday – The Clemens party left Bermuda, again on the Bermudian. D. Hoffman writes:

As the ship sailed from the pier, the flag was dipped three times, and the King “lifted his head high and saluted with grave beauty,” Miss Lyon wrote. She said the little person at his side was Paddy, a pretty girl from the Upper West Side who had been on the same voyage to the Islands.

January 8 Tuesday – Sam was at sea en route from Bermuda to New York on the Bermudian.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The King is so amusing, so paralyzing. [written diagonally:] See notebook” [MTP TS 7]. Note: Lyon continued, likely at a later time, to strike out words, phrases and even whole segments, seemingly toward publication, which never, until now, has taken place.

January 9 Wednesday – In the morning Sam, Joe Twichell and Isabel Lyon arrived back in New York [D. Hoffman 77]. Twain told the press, “Please don’t say I have been away for my health. I have plenty of health. Indeed, I’ll give some of it away to anybody who needs health” [New York Times, Jan. 10, 1907].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We anchored at Pier 47 this morning, but were a long time doing it because we had to avoid a sunken ferryboat. The week has been one of unbroken peace” [MTP TS 7].

January 10 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

January 11 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y., after dictating and playing billiards, Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah.  

Dear Jean, I do hope you are feeling happier, by this time, it wrung my heart to see you so disappointed, & I could not help thinking all the time how grieved your mother would have been to see you long for a thing—anything—& have to be denied it. [in a paragraph, Sam encouraged her to see the best in people; that she’d be happier that way]

January 12 Saturday – The New York Times, p. BR21 ran a short notice of Sam’s new book:

Mark Twain’s Latest.

January 13 Sunday – Mark Twain’s Plea for setting apart the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln ran on p.8 of the New York Times, “A Lincoln Memorial.”

Sam wrote to Jean Clemens on Jan. 14 of his dinner company for this evening:

January 14 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Isabel Lyon wrote a letter of introduction from Sam for Finley Peter Dunne to Lyman Beecher Stowe [MTP].

Sam also wrote a letter to daughter Jean. After relating the dinner company for the previous night (see Jan. 13 entry) he wrote:  

Miss Lyon has gone to Redding with John Howells.

That lady did find me in the train, after my pleasant visit to you, but not until we were within 30 minutes of New York.

January 15 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Edith Draper in Lancashire, England that he enclosed a photo he signed on Jan. 17: “I will comply with pleasure, dear Mrs Edith. My secretary will choose a photo which will go handily in the mail & I will autograph it. / Indeed I shouldn’t regret it if I were an Englishman—& particularly a Lancashire man / Sincerely…” [MTP]. Note: Lyon remarked about this note on a sheet inserted into her journal: “Here is a proof of the sweet & courteous answer Mr.

January 16 Wednesday – Sam hosted a small party for Helen Keller; George Iles, and Mrs. James Sutherland were also present, Sam autographing his portrait for the latter [MTHHR 577; Jan. 17 from Iles; IVL TS 13 below].

January 17 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to daughter Jean, whose incoming is not extant:  

Why yes, dear Jean, your character—as I saw—had indeed softened, but the other day, it seemed to have hardened (temporarily only, I think) toward Anna & the others, on account of what you regarded as unjust conduct toward you. But I did not seem to blame & reproach you, did I? I could not mean that; in my heart I have no reproaches for you, but only mournings for your unearned estate.