January 25 Saturday – Sam left for Bermuda on the Bermudian. The New York Times, Jan. 26, p. 4 noted his departure and added:
“Mr. Clemens has been ill at his home for some days, and when he arrived at the vessel went direct to his stateroom and did not emerge while the vessel was at her pier. He was ordered south by his physician because of an attack of laryngitis.”
January 24 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Jan. 16 from Elinor Sutherlin Glyn. The letter below was Sam’s protest of the publication by Glyn of a pamphlet (Mark Twain on Three Weeks) which included a purported verbatim account of a conversation between the two discussing Glyn’s novel, Three Weeks (1907), which had shocked sensibilities (and gained many sales) for it’s unabashed account of an adulterous relationship.
January 23 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y.
January 22 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie.
Dear St. Andrew:
I have had to decline this mission a couple of times in the past year or two, & the most I can do now is to forward the letter—which I do, & leave it to take its chances.
That whisky came very handy. I had a very wild & exasperating cold, but a pint of the whisky tamed it in 3 minutes by the watch & I did not wake up again for ten hours.
I shall be out of bed tomorrow, I think, & I’ll break straightway for Bermuda [MTP].
January 21 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
Francesca dear
I wish you were here
And had 2 weeks to spare. Then I would pack you & Miss Lyon aboard ship & sail for Bermuda Saturday. Now you see what you are robbing her of—& she needs that trip very much. I shall take nobody but Ashcroft—yet he hasn’t any use for a voyage.
You are going to spend those ten Easter days here, aren’t you, dear? We’ll come to Catonville & fetch you.
January 20 Monday – The New York Times, p. 9 reported on Sam’s health, as “No Worse”:
MARK TWAIN NO WORSE
———
But Still In Bed Nursing His Cold—To Go to Bermuda Soon.
There was at least one sore man in the city yesterday, and he was sore in two places at once—in his chest and in his mind. The man was Samuel L. Clemens, whom almost everybody knows best as “Mark Twain.”
January 19 Sunday – In the morning Dr. Edward Quintard checked on Sam’s condition again, noting that he was “no worse” [NY Times Jan. 20, 1908, p.9 “Mark Twain No Worse”].
The New York Times, Jan. 18, 1908, ran a squib under “City Brevities” p.9:
January 18 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “King is really ill today” [MTP: IVL TS 10]. Note: bronchitis.
In the afternoon Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) died of a heart attack in his NYC apartment. He was 74 [NY Times Jan 19, 1908, p. 1, “E.C. Stedman Dies of Heart Disease.”]
At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to a reporter from the N.Y. Times, who solicited his response to the news of Stedman’s death. Sam’s dictated response ran in the Jan. 19 paper.
MARK TWAIN STUNNED.
———
January 17 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Julia Langdon Loomis.
Julie dear, I wrote you a day or 2 ago, but I don’t remember what I said because I was sober at the time. But this not is to say—to-wit: The next Doe-Luncheon will happen at the above address on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 1 p.m. You are hereby invited. Don’t fail to come, dear.
[in left margin] Not one declined before! [MTP].
Sam also wrote to the Other Depositors of the Knickerbocker Trust Co..
January 16 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Julia Langdon Loomis (1871- 1948), daughter of Charles J. and Ida Clark Langdon.
Jan 16, I think.
Julie dear, it is 10:30 a.m., & time for the dictating to begin; but it wont for I am half full of whisky—& not yet finished. I have discovered a cold, & this is to break it up; for with my bronchital tendencies I dread a cold as the Presbyterian burnt child dreads perdition.