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 12 Saturday – The New York Times, p. BR21 ran a short notice of Sam’s new book:
Mark Twain’s Latest.
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 10 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
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 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 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 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 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 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: