December 2 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie.
Dear St. Andrew: / What is your telephone number? I have been trying to get to your house, & look at the family, but it is so far & I rise so late—however, I shall succeed, yet. My telephone address is “3907 Gramercy”—it isn’t in the book. With warmest regards to you all, … [MTP].
December 1 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote a short note to Marcella Sembrich, opera star. “Dear Madame Sembrich— / It was lovely of you to send me so eloquent & so beautiful aremembrance, & I thank you out of my heart” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Will Larrymore Smedley in Chataqua-on-Chataqua, N.Y.: “To you, & to all my other known & unknown friends who have lightened the weight of my seventieth birthday with kind words & good wishes I offer my most grateful thanks, & beg leave to sign myself” [MTP].
December – “Eve’s Diary” was first published in Harper’s Monthly. In June 1906 it was published in book form as Eve’s Diary Translated from the Original MS; also included in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1010-11].
In N.Y.C. Sam inscribed his photograph to Mrs. John C. Graham: “Perhaps Mrs. John C. Graham will divine why this picture is intruded upon her by her obliged servant. / Mark Twain Dec./05.” [MTP].
November 30 Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – Sam’s 70th Birthday.
Several newspapers across the country reported Sam’s “Thanksgiving sentiment,” including this quote taken from the Nov. 28 issue of the Grand Forks Daily Herald (N. Dakota), p.1:
“Every year every person in America concentrates all his thoughts on one thing—cataloguing his reasons for being thankful to the Deity for the blessings conferred on him and on the humanrace during the expiring twelve months.
November 29 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to John P. Cowan.
Dear Mr. Cowan: / Health to you! Sometimes, in the past two years, I have asked the Harpers’permission to say a word outside—for print—but I don’t now, for the applications these past two days amount to a sort of flood. Privately, between you and me, I did not suppose there was any Clemens blood in the world, outside of my family and J. Ross Clemens of St. Louis. Adam was the only ancestor I had ever heard of. / Sincerely yours … [MTP].
November 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. where he wrote to Robert Bacon, Asst. Secretary of State, who was seeking more information about England’s willingness to act against Leopold.
November 27 Monday – Sam was in Washington, D.C. and was a guest of President Theodore Roosevelt. Later in the day he returned to New York. The New York Times reported the event on page 1.
Mark Twain the President’s Guest
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27.—Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) was a guest of President and Mrs. Roosevelt at luncheon to-day. Invited to meet Mr. Clemens were Secretary Bonaparte, Attorney General Moody, and John Temple Graves. The call of Mr. Clemens upon the President was purely social.
November 26 Sunday – In Washington, D.C. Sam wrote to Brian Ború Dunne (1878-1962), journalist for the Washington Times: “I lack time for an interview, but if we can compromise on a Thanksgiving Sentiment, take your pencil & I will dictate it. Thus:” [MTP]. Note: Sam followed this note, crammed at the top of the page, with what is a self-interview that ran in the front page of the Nov. 27 issue of the Washington D.C. Times. Sam wrote the following on a small sheet, cut from the above paragraph. “A few days ago one of the interviewers [Dunne] offered to let me do a Thanksgiving Sentiment.
November 25 Saturday – The Hartford Courant ran an interview, “Mark Twain at 70” p.16.
Scharnhorst (p. 511-16 & n.1) explains it was attributed to Samuel E. Moffett but actually written by Clemens.
Louise Forsslund wrote Sam from Sayville, L.I., N.Y. to confirm a story her father told of traveling with a young man named Clemens in 1849 in Sacramento [MTP]. Note: Sam’s reply ca. Nov. 28.
The New York Times, p. BR812 ran a squib on the coming birthday celebration, “Mark Twain’s Banquet.”
November 24 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y., Sam spoke into a graphophone, dictating a letter that Isabel Lyon later wrote to Dr. Osgood:
Dear Dr. Osgood:
Your letter gives me very great pleasure. I believe there is no greater pleasure than that which one gets out of a compliment heartily expressed. Your warm words have gone to my heart and I am grateful for them.
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