May 6 Wednesday – In N.Y.C. Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Frederick A. Duneka.

“Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him & say that as these people want such a small quantity of stuff, & as it would look better to be in the collection than out of it, if you have no objection he will tell them to go ahead” [MTP]. Note: likely some unidentified group wanting to reprint snippets of Mark Twain’s published works, though also unidentified.

May 5 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “Eulabee Dix / Mr. Clemens remembers that you want a sitting for his hand./ Margery. / Mustn’t forget that Mr. Clemens is counting on your & Carolines visit. It isn’t entirely selfish” [MTP: IVL TS 52]. Note: this entry is on a separate scrap of paper, undated and placed in this date; it may not relate.

May 4 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the May 3 from Dorothy Quick.

You are just a dear, you little rascal! I shall be so glad to see you. I shall be downstairs waiting for you at 11.30 when you come.

It was lovely of you to send me the original MS of the story.

We certainly did have good times in Tuxedo, & I guess we will duplicate them in the new house in the country. We’ll start The Author’s League again, & you will dictate & I will be your amanuensis.

May 3 Sunday– Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “Ill all day, but I did go up to the Wayland’s for dinner with a stiff larynx—and a heavy heart” [MTP: IVL TS 51].

A.J. Dawson wrote from Scotland to ask Sam, “When will you come back again? The U.S. shouldn’t be selfish; we too have rights….Yours so affectionately.” Dawson quoted Sam’s “The Aged Pilot Man” from RI (1872) [MTP].

May 2 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Headache. So ill all day, for I wept without control for hours last night, because I was exhausted, and the fact that Santa [Clara] misunderstood all my efforts, in working over the house. My anxiety over the finishings, my interest in my search for the right thing for the King’s house has all been misinterpreted, and the child says I am trying to ignore her. All my effort has been to please her, to keep her from the dreary search of hours and hours to find the right thing, or shape or color.

May 1 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Apr. 30 to Frances Nunnally.

The way you are arranging things, you little rascal, what sort of a glimpse of you am I going to get? Before the 6th of June we shall be living in the house I am building in the country. However, it isn’t far away—only an hour & a half. When you arrive here I will come to town & see you—& then I hope you & your mother can run out to the villa with me & give me a visit.

May – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed a copy of LM to an unidentified person: “Mark Twain /.  I published this book at my own expense, as an experiment in economy. It cost me fifty-six thousand dollars before the first copy issued from the press. / SLC / May, 1908.”

Sam discussed The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (1737-1809) with Albert Bigelow Paine, who quotes Twain:

April 30 Thursday –  Frances Nunnally wrote from Baltimore to Sam.

April 29 Wednesday– Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Dr. Van Dyke as a Man and as a Fisherman”  [Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi, 87-94]. Note: title assigned by the MTP. Undoubtedly the sketch owes itself to an Atlantic article in the May 1908 issue by Henry Bradford Washburn, “Shall We Hunt and Fish? The Confessions of a Sentimentalist,” where Washburn opens with a quotation from Van Dyke’s “Some Remarks on Gulls, with a Foot-note on a Fish,” Scribner’s Magazine Aug. 1907. In his A.D.

April 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Nancy Langhorne Astor.

I am very sorry to hear that you have been sick, & very glad to believe that you are well again.

I wonder if I am really to have the lark of darting over to England & back, in the summer? The thought of it is enticing, but—There’s always a but. I do not suppose I can go—still, it is good enough material to dream upon, till by & by.