Submitted by scott on
February 15 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey.

Dear Uncle George: / I greet your 70 birthday with gratitude & enthusiasm, & with cordial wishes that there may be many happy returns of it. And next time, don’t swindle me out of my share in it, but invite me in time. I think it’s a cruelty & a shame that I can’t be there. With love to all the Trinity, … [MTP]. Note: Sam’s humor: Harvey was b. Feb. 16, 1864, making him but 42 years old.

Sam also wrote to L.E. Shattuck [MTP]. Note: he gave the same response offered to A.D. Howard of the NY Tribune ca. Feb. 14, which suggests Shattuck was another newspaperman.

Clemens’ A.D.   for this day: Susy Clemens’ Biography continued—Death of Jervis Langdon —Birth of Langdon Clemens—Burlesque map of Paris …[AMT 1: 359-363].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Mr. Clemens rang for me this morning at 9:10, & when I went in he said: “I’ve been thinking about making a round of the hospitals & talking to some of those sick people.” Then he told me about the time in London when he and C.C. and someone else went to an accident ward perhaps, for everyone was picturesquely bandaged, & they had a very satisfactory time. “Once I talked to the inmates of an insane asylum, in Hartford. I have talked to idiots a thousand times, but only once to the insane.”

I asked him about the dinner last night and he told me that they had kept Mr. Munro “down cellar” for awhile & when he was brought up, he found 20 or more men in the library with plaids across their breasts & he as presiding officer had linked arms with completely surprised Mr. Munro & they marched around through the rooms with bag pipers going on ahead. I know it was better than Mr. Clemens could say, for he is so modest about himself & does not realize how completely he contributes to perfections. He said that Mr. Paine had a poem for the occasion—the best thing of the evening, thought Mr. Clark had a good one too. [in left margin: No more portrait sittings!…] [MTP TS 30-31].  

Mally Graham Coatsworth Lord (Mrs. Herbert Lord) wrote from 623 W. 113 St. NYC to Sam. “My dear dear  Mr. Mark Twain,— / There is to be a group of your adorers at our house from four to six on washington’s Birthday, quite a lot of people, and I want to know if you won’t come and be adored” [MTP].

Sam’s A.D.   of this day titled “The Fortifications of Paris” covered: Livy’s illness after Langdon Clemens’ birth and her care by Rachael Gleason of Elmira; the death of Emma Nye at the Clemens home; the publication of the wacky map—the piece was selected for MTE [249- 52].

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.