December 8 Thursday – Mary C. Waters wrote to Sam, having read his Joan of Arc article in the Dec. Harper’s. She enclosed an article, no longer extant [MTP].

December 7 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal contains an entry for this date: “And then Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich came in to ask Mr. Clemens and Jean to go tonight to see a tragedy that he has recently written.” Note: The play was Judith of Bethulia, a Tragedy, which was his dramatization of an earlier poem, “Judith and Holofernes” (1896); Her Journal also contained: “This has been a day of events—for this morning Mr. [Finley Peter] Dunne came for a closeting with Mr. Clemens” [Gribben 16: 1903-1906 Diary, TS 31, MTP]. The New York Times, Dec.

December 6 Tuesday – Gale puts Sam as a guest at George B. Harvey’s dinner for Henry James [Henry James Encyclopedia 683].

December 4, after – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Mr. Lee: “No, it’s lovely. I haven’t any suggestions to make” [MTP].

December 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka. It may interest you to know that all of half of the letters I get concerning the Joan sketch are from Catholics; & are strongly (even fervently) complimentary, every time.

December 2 Friday – The National Institute of Arts and Letters, founded in 1898, cast ballots and elected seven members to the first American Academy of Arts and Letters. These were, representing literature: Samuel L. Clemens, William Dean Howells, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and John Hay; representing art: Augustus Saint-Gaudens and John La Farge; representing music, Edward MacDowell. The secretary of the Institute was none other than Robert Underwood Johnson.

December 1 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s diary: “This afternoon Mr. Clemens was restless and after he talked business with me, and after he played through The last rose of summer and Wagner’s Wedding March on the orchestrelle, we sat down to play 500 again. We played until tea time, and then after tea time we played until 6:45….We played 500 until eleven o’clock. Mr. Clemens won 14 games [Hill 98; TS 29, MTP]. Note: “Wedding March” from Wagner’s Lohengrin.

December – Sam’s essay, “Saint Joan of Arc” first appeared in Harper’s Monthly (p. 3-12). It was collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].

Sam wrote a slightly edited version of the 1893 “Extract from Adam’s Diary”; it was edited to make it a companion piece to “Eve’s Diary,” and would be collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Camfield’s bibliog.].

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 69th Birthday.

C. Brereton Sharpe wrote from International Plasmon Co., London to Sam, asking him to act as their proxy for the planned American Plasmon Co. shareholders meeting of Dec. 22 [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s diary: “Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens was talking of Moncure D. Conway. He is reading Conway’s autobiography just published, and it made him hark back to the days in London 24 years ago” [Gribben 157: 1903-1906 Journal, TS 28, MTP].

November 29 Tuesday – On or about this day Sam moved into his new home at 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. and daughter Jean arrived as well.