October 1905

scott 15 August 2022
October – Sam sent an aphorism to an unknown person: “Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it.” [MTP].

Current Literature published a photograph (no credit given) of Mark Twain, facing p. 353 [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 190].

Sam inscribed his copy of Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, by Sir Samuel Dill (1844-1924): “SL. Clemens / October 1905” [Gribben 193].

September 29, 1905 Friday

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September 29 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Harper & Brothers, asking them to send the magazine to 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. instead of to Dublin, beginning with the Nov. issue [MTP].

Lyon also replied to Robert Underwood Johnson (incoming Sept. 21) that Sam would be unable to make a meeting of the Academy of Arts & Letters as he would not be in the city until about Nov. 7 [MTP].

September 28, 1905 Thursday

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September 28 Thursday – Sam’s essay: King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule, was published as a pamphlet for the American branch of the Congo Reform Assoc. by The P.R. Warren Co., Boston. Budd: “At least three further printings followed soon afterward, and a ‘Second Edition,’ with additional supplementary material, was issued late in 1905 or early in 1906” [Collected 2: 1010]. Note: Hawkins points out that the pamphlet, by Twain’s suggestion, “contained several photographs of mutilated Congolese.

September 26, 1905 Tuesday

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September 26 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Tonight Mr. Clemens read 70 pages of the new story he has been working upon for the last 4 or 5 days. (“A Horse’s Tale”)

A letter from Santa C. [Clara] tells that she had a nasal operation last week, and is weak and tired and discouraged, but she’s better now than she was [MTP TS 102].

September 25, 1905 Monday

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September 25 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka (letter not extant but referred to in Duneka’s Sept. 26) [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:“Some youngsters here for dinner and a romp. Jean in a turmoil and a nest of tempers because those young guests didn’t assemble in invited sequence. The two Henderson children, Gerald and Hildegarde, didn’t talk a bit—but listened spellbound to every word that fell from Mr. Clemens’s lips” [MTP TS 102].

September 23, 1905 Saturday

scott 15 August 2022
September 23 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Thomas S. Barbour of the Congo Reform Assoc. in Boston.

M . Clemens directs me to write for him saying that he has been considering whether he could be made an honorary president, or a second president, so that he could be connected with the Congo Reform Association without doing any work, but could be of service by giving the use of his name. Will you kindly tell M . Clemens what you think of it? [MTP].
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