December 28 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
“Puppy chew the soap.”
“Mr Clemens do you care to contribute to the Booth Memorial Fund?”
“No I don’t. I hate this idea of celebrities scratching each other’s backs & I don’t want anybody to be asked to contribute anything—for me!” [MTP TS 154-155].
December 27 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Nov. 9 from David M. Jones.
Dear Father Jones: /It is a pleasant & welcome greeting and I thank you cordially for it.
December 26 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.) in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. After musing over who it was that called and said her name was Mrs. Rogers, Sam offered this fictional dialogue about going to Bermuda in summer.
Naturally I came home yesterday almost entirely convinced that Bermuda-in-summer & suicide are interchangeable terms. By midnight I had almost come to the conclusion to retire from the experiment.
December 25 Tuesday Christmas – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed in a copy of What is Man? to Neltje Blanchan DeGraff Doubleday (1865-1918) (Mrs. Frank N. Doubleday) :
December 24 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
C.C. goes to spend tonight with the Gilders & she’ll hang up her stocking. The King wanted to be represented too in that stocking, so he sent me up to Vantine’s to buy a pin—it happened to be a jade pin & is good.
December 23 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied with thanks to the Dec. 18 of Helen Keller.
O, thank you for those lovely words!
Now as to your January visit: we must certainly meet then, & have a talk.
Another thing. You say,
“As a reformer, you know that ideas must be driven home again & again.”
December 22 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to thank Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers) for the Christmas cigars and the kind remembrance. He would come up “pretty soon” to wish a Merry Christmas in person as he’d “worked off the several-days’ engagements which Clara had piled” on [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Mrs. Fiske’s play” [MTP TS 151-152].
The New York Times, Dec. 23, p.2 ran an article about Mark Twain and the telephone, quoting him from the previous day, Dec. 22:
December 21 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Electric music. Bermuda.
The King is planning to go to Bermuda if Mr. Twichell can go too, & I’m to go as valet & myself. I’ve written to Mr. Twichell & now we’re waiting. Mr. Clemens would like to go there for the summer & has had me look up the temperature & other things. He thinks he’d like the isolation, but the lack of companionship would make more desolation for him than anything else, for he of all people must have companionship—mental companionship.
December 20 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Geraldine Farrar” [MTP TS 150].
Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: Capt. Osborn tells to Bret Harte, in a Californian restaurant, his adventure of falling overboard and his rescue. A tramp overhears him, claims to be his rescuer, is liberally rewarded, and afterwards discovered to be an impostor [MTP Autodict3].
William R. Coe sent Sam a large fold out map of Bermuda. No letter [MTP].
December 19 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Dec. 13 from Miss Cally Thomas Ryland. “I am thankful to say that such letters as yours do come—as you have divined—with a happy frequency. They refresh my life, they give it value; like yours, they are always welcome, and I am always grateful for them. / Sincerely Yours …” [MTP]. Note: Ryland used a common device for humorist—she created a fictional “alter ego” who could get away with speaking blunt and outlandish truths, much like Twain’s “Mr. Brown.” She was the society editor for the Richmond News Leader.