March 31 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tomorrow Mother is coming up.

The pot hooks do not stay in my brain for the brain is deranged.

“Passed Michael Kelly with a load of shlabs.” That’s what the Irishman passed after he took a pill. It must be so for Katie said it [MTP: TS 49].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: Lewenhaupt [likely designating an osteopathic treatment for Clemens]

Mr. Clemens received a reply to his letter to Dr. Hale, & he sent the reply with a letter note to Col. Harvey to interest him as a publisher—perhaps—

March 30 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Daniel Carter Beard.

Dear Dan Beard: / You did not stay too long. That is settled.

2. I don’t think the [War] prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth. (I am offering a very small laugh at the Rockefeller-American-Board comedy. Now, slight as it is, I would not blame Harvey if he should say it isn’t good policy to print it; for he is responsible to his Co & should not permit laughs which could injure its business.)

March 29 Wednesday – Sam read his essay “William Dean Howells” to the household. In April he would send this piece and the final MS of Christian Science to Frederick A.Duneka at Harper’s [Hill 101].

Sam wrote to William H. Pearson for the N.Y. Produce Exchange, Safe Deposit and Storage Co. His letter is not extant but is referred to in Pearson’s reply of the following day, Mar. 30. See entry.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Tonight Mr. Clemens read us an appreciation that he has written of Mr. Howells. It is beautiful, the strength of his pen is marvelous” [MTP: TS 47].

March 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Seymour Eaton.

March 27 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

My head is full of obstetrical hooks and slants and jabs for today I began to study shorthand. I don’t see how anyone can ever put soul into that sort of writing. It would seem wrong to put down Mr. Clemens’s thoughts like that—but it’s for Mr. Clemens’s thoughts that I’m trying to learn it. It is very lonely without Saint Mother, but who am I that I should be lonely in the presence of a loveliness like Mr. Clemens’s [MTP: TS 47].

March 26 – early April – In a supplement to a June, 1913 American Post review, the tale is told of Sam attending a performance of Benjamin Chapin playing Lincoln on stage. NY Times (Mar. 25, p. X1) gives the first week’s performance began on Mar. 26. The article and a letter (uncollected) Sam sent to Chapin’s secretary.

MARK TWAIN AND PARTY

ATTEND “LINCOLN”

By One of the Party

March 26 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Dear Col. Higginson,—I early learned that you would be my neighbor in the Summer & I rejoiced, recognizing in you & your family a large asset. I hope for frequent intercourse between the two households. I shall have my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the rest-cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk Conn. & we shall not see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the middle of October.

March 25 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Duneka says of the Satan letter ‘That it is great[’]. Boy come today with proof. / Count Lewenhaupt began treatment today for Mr. Clemens—$2.00 a treatment. / Mr. Clemens dined with Mr & Mrs. Rogers” [MTP TS 9]

March 24 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

March 23 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: