March 13 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane. Only the bottom of the page survives: “Sue dear, beg for me with St. Peter if you get there first. He will remember me as the young fellow who tried for his place & couldn’t pass the examinations—at that time” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Muriel M. Pears, now in Washington, D.C.
March 12 Sunday – Sam inscribed in Clara Clemens’ copy of JA (volume 17, Hillcrest ed.): Every one is a moon, & has / a dark side which he / never shows to any body. / Mark Twain / March 12, 1905.” [Sotheby’s, Sept. 1962].
March 11 Saturday – Sam wrote the following concerning his birthday. This piece was later found in an autograph album. Note Sam’s comparison of himself to George Washington:
Nov 30, 1835.
March 10 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Elizabeth Garver Jordan (1867-1947) editor of Harper’s Bazar.
March 9 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Mr. Gilder and Dorothea dined here. Dorothea looked very sweet in a little marquise bodice, brilliantly charmingly flowered. She left early to go to a concert but Mr. Gilder stayed on and was very interesting in his talk about Roosevelt as a reader, and as a man with a phenominal [sic] memory. Only as a politician is he not admirable [MTP: TS 43].
Philip Cabot wrote for Henry Copley Greene to Miss Lyon, acknowledging the signed leases from Clemens, and returning one signed copy for Sam’s files [MTP].
March 8 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Mr. Coburn called and brought some very wonderful photographs. George Meredith, Andrew Lang, Mrs. Ward, Edmund Gosse and many others. He brought some landscapes too, and when I showed one of some mighty trees to Mr. Clemens, at first he couldn’t make out the subject and when I told him what it was he said, “I thought it was the dinosaurus coming down town.”
March 7 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Beatrice M. Benjamin.
Thank you for remembering to send me the questions. At first glance they look formidable, for young girls (& their elders); but upon examination one finds them to be simple, direct, distinctly outlined, & not formidable—in a word, well devised, a difficult job competently performed. A definite question is a suggestive & stimulating text to talk to, a vague & indefinite one is an invitation to you to make snowballs out of fog—an industry which has its embarrassments.
March 6 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam replied to Ernest C. Hales’ Feb. 21:
I thank you very much for what you say. Just as I was about to comply with your request in the formal and customary fashion, this old letter fell out of an old book, and I thought you might prefer it.
It is the original—a typewritten copy went to the man on the other end—Dr. Sill (I think that is the name) inventor of Osteopathy, Kirksville, Missouri [MTP: Cyril Clemens’ Mark Twain: The Letter Writer, 1932, p.104].
March 5 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Late this afternoon Mr. Clemens slipped away up to the Grosvenor and telephoned to say he was going to dine with the Misses McMahon. Francesca and Rosamond Gilder were here and stayed to supper. Today Mr. Clemens read me some bits of manuscript that he has been working on. He is so wonderful, so ennobling [MTP: TS 43] Hill adds a line not in the TS: “[Jean] hated it and refused to type any of it” [100]. Note: see Trombley p. 63.
March 4 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I saw Dr. John in the morning and he does not say that the eye will ever be much better, and then I met Jean who has had an equally successful trip in Dublin and found a very good house owned by Mr. Henry Copley Greene of Boston. She found a house too owned by a French Canadian. She stayed one night with Mr. and Mrs. Abbott A. Thayer. Today Herr Heinick came [MTP: TS 42].