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—
April – Review of Reviews (London) published an anonymous article, “If Emperors Were All Stripped Naked” p. 375. Tenney: “Summary of ‘The Czar’s Soliloquy,’ which appeared in North American Review in March [40]. Connecticut Magazine published “Mark Twain’s Autobiography, 1872” [Tenney 40]. Note: The actual title was “Mark Twain—His Autobiography” which ran in the magazine for April-May-June, 1905. It is a reprinting of “Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography” (1871), later in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906).
April 1 Saturday – Bambino, the cat which owned Mark Twain (no one owns a cat) was lost but later in the day came back. Sam had written an ad offering a reward, but canceled before it went into the paper. Still, the NY Herald ran this article on p.9 the following day, Apr. 2:
MARK TWAIN’S CAT CAME BACK.
——
Black Pet Mourned by the Humorist Again Brightens his Home.
April 2 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning when I was searching through the multitudious letters in the study, for the one that gives me the true history of “The Postman Who Stole from the Mails”, and so furnish the material for the chapter in the Admiral’s Story, the gong gonged and I went out in the hall to find Mr. Poultney Bigelow saying “Mr. Clemens is clamoring for Miss Lyon.” I went in to answer the simple question “Had Count Lewenhaupt [the osteopath] a settled telephone address? Mr.
April 3 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mother and I went to a delicious little restaurant, Italian—around in 10th Street. There we met Lilian Griffin. We had a friendly chat and enjoyed the Chianti and the macaroni. The Griffins’s have a studio here on 25th St. and Walter is painting portraits. Lilian is quite stout and looks matronly.
The Aphrodite is going to be placed on exhibition again. I must manage a view of it, and the exhibition of pictures too, up on 57th Street [MTP TS 49-50]. Note: see also Sam’s of Feb. 26.
April 4 Tuesday – Richard Watson Gilder for Century Magazine wrote to Sam.
April 5 Wednesday – Sam read the MS of an article by Isaac Frederick Marcosson about H.H. Rogers for the World’s Work [Gribben 479: Lyon’s Journal, no TS given; Bowe 42]. Note: Sam “conferred” with Rogers on the article the next day, Apr. 6. He had acted as a go between for Frank N. Doubleday, publisher of World’s Work, and Rogers.
At 21 Fifth Ave. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Robbins Battell Stoeckel.
Dear Sir: / According to D . Quintards advice M . Clemens directs me to send herewith his check for 200.00 as first payment for rent of Cottage in Norfolk, Conn.
April 6 Thursday – Sam conferred with H.H. Rogers about the MS of an article by journalist Isaac Frederick Marcosson about Rogers [Gribben 479: Lyon’s Journal, no TS given]. Note: Sam had read the MS on Apr. 5. He would discuss the article with Mocasson on Apr. 7. See Boewe.
April 7 Friday – Sam discussed the MS of an article by journalist Isaac Frederick Marcosson about H.H. Rogers [IVL #2 TS 12; Gribben 479]. Note: Sam read the article on Apr. 5 and spoke with Rogers on Apr. 6. The article ran in the May issue of World’s Work.
At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Robert Underwood Johnson.
“Mr. Clemens wishes me to say that he intends to be present at the conference which is called for Saturday April 22 at the Aldine Association. Mr. Clemens has delayed notifying you of his intention, owing to necessity” [MTP].
April 8 Saturday – Sam’s letter (unsigned) to the editor (as from Satan), “A Humane Word from Satan” first appeared in Harper’s Weekly for Apr. 8, 1905. It was collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1010]. Note: the letter poked again at the American Board of Foreign Missions for not accepting donations from John D. Rockefeller.
Sam inscribed in TS (Vol. 20 of the Hillcrest ed., daughter Clara’s copy), a maxim and a dated sketch about the cat Bambino. From Sotheby’s write up:
April 9 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam replied to Clesson S. Kenney’s Apr. 8.
I thank you very much for the Farlow circular.
The question you ask me is, “Are they getting so strong that they can dictate what an author may write?” Change the word “write” to publish, and the proper answer is—Yes—However, this has been the case for two or three years. / Very Truly Yours [MTP].