March 3 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I met her [Jean] today on the 12.19 train when Katie left it. But yesterday was high holiday of the year for me. David and Lou were out at the Whitings to meet me there. I saw dear Mr. Whiting as he lay in his sick bed, a noble wonderful face, 81 years. I went to Hattie’s reception and saw friends and friends and friends. I went to the Moores and saw Jesse there. I stayed the night with Leila and we sat in our wrappers in her room and talked over biscuit and beer until nearly 2 o’clock [MTP: TS 42]. Note: Miss Lyon was in Hartford.

March 2 Thursday – Jean Clemens and Katy Leary were in Dublin, N.H. where they previewed Henry Copley Greene’s house, approving it for the summer rental. Jean stayed one night with Mr. & Mrs. Abbott Thayer, likely this evening or the next, as Isabel Lyon met Jean on Mar. 4 in Hartford. See her journal entries for Mar. 2, 3 & 4.

March 1 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Mr. Clemens talked about Mr. Howells. He doesn’t know why he is so loyal to Howells (literarily) and he told me how only recently Mr. Howells has been free from financial worry. He has managed in the long years to tuck away $60,000 in good investments, but that’s all. Then he talked about Bayard Taylor’s wonderful memory. It was brought up by the sense of the words “remember” and “recollect”. Mr.

March – Sam’s essay, “The Czar’s Soliloquy” first ran in the Mar. issue of North American Review. It was not collected in any publication during his lifetime [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].

February 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon replied to Odoardo Luchini‘s Feb. 14.

Dear Senator Luchini: / M . Clemens wishes me to write for him and thank you for your very interesting letter. He is much pleased with it.  He wishes me to tell you that he is still in his bed and hopes to remain there for a few years yet; for, undisturbed, he can read and smoke and write all he wants to, and so he is having a good time.

February 27 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

“Mr. Clemens was very, very interesting for during and after dinner he discussed the famous Beecher trial. Mr. Clemens had said at the time, and he still says that guilty or not, Beecher should have publicly denied the charge the day after it appeared in the press, for the honor of the woman, he should have done it” [MTP: TS 41].

Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Telegraphed Mr. Thayer. Wrote to Mr. H.C. Greene about Dublin house mentioned by Mr. Dana” [MTP TS 6]. Note: Henry Copley Greene: Abbott H. Thayer.

February 26 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Kate Rogers Nowell.

“Dear Mrs Nowell: / Indeed the portrait is fine. I have said it before but the thought is brought up in my mind again by the Outlook’s reproductions—just received the other day—that they are fine also, one can see at a glance” [MTP]. Note: An artist from Mass. was employed, Kate Roger Nowell for The Outlook. No bio. information was found.

February 25 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Abbott H. Thayer sent a telegram to Sam: “This very great joy to us plenty houses visit us immediately and choose one / A H Thayer.” On the backside of the telegram Sam wrote in pencil what appears to be a response telegram, “Too ill to travel will send representative Shall you be there to see her—Please wire” [MTP]. Note: Henry Copley Greene’s Dublin house, “Lone Tree Hill” on the slope of Mt. Monadnock was chosen. Greene (1871-1951) was an author from an old New England family.

February 24 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

This morning Mrs. Crane went home, leaving behind her a blank. Someone spoke of her sweet inward peace, and she radiates it. Mr. Clemens calls her “the well beloved”, and she is all of that.

Pity it is that Mr. Clemens cannot look down a flight of stairs and see the beauty of his head as he stands in a red hall with a searching incandescent light revealing and caressing the wondrous glow of his hair [MTP: TS 41].