Day by Day entries are from Mark Twain, Day By Day, four volumes of books compiled by David Fears and made available on-line by the Center for Mark Twain Studies.  The entries presented here are from conversions of the PDFs provided by the Center for Mark Twain Studies and are subject to the vagaries of that process.    The PDFs, themselves, have problems with formatting and some difficulties with indexing for searching.  These are the inevitable problems resulting from converting a printed book into PDFs.  Consequently, what is provided here are copies of copies.  

I have made attempts at providing a time-line for Twain's Geography and have been dissatisfied with the results.  Fears' work provides a comprehensive solution to that problem.  Each entry from the books is titled with the full date of the entry, solving a major problem I have with the On-line site - what year is the entry for.  The entries are certainly not perfect reproductions from Fears' books, however.  Converting PDFs to text frequently results in characters, and sometimes entire sections of text,  relocating.  In the later case I have tried to amend the problem where it occurs but more often than not the relocated characters are simply omitted.  Also, I cannot vouch for the paragraph structure.  Correcting these problems would require access to the printed copies of Fears' books.  Alas, but this is beyond my reach.

This page allows the reader to search for entries based on a range of dates.  The entries are also accessible from each of the primary sections (Epochs, Episodes and Chapters) of Twain's Geography.  

Entry Date (field_entry_date)

February 3, 1906 Saturday

Submitted by scott on
February 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Dennis J. Mahoney.

Dear M . Mahoney: / If you go on trying to make better Americans of the people whom you meet you cannot be better employed. You will be doing your best, you will be doing your full share, & nothing more can be required of any man. / May you prosper— … [MTP]. Note: Mahoney not further identified.    

Sam also wrote to Gertrude Natkin, 138 W. 98 in N.Y.C.

February 4, 1906 Sunday

Submitted by scott on
February 4 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Richard R. Bowker asking when “a copyright meeting of importance in Washington or elsewhere” would take place [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Yesterday Mr. Paine gave to Mr. Clemens and me copies of the first Tammany Tiger designed by Nast. Mr. Paine is a generous man, it is a comfort to have his presence in the house and to know that every morning he is working over Mr. Clemens’s autobiographical papers. He is bringing into order the clippings and letters and everything.

February 5, 1906 Monday

Submitted by scott on

February 5 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam replied to William A. Caldwell (incoming not extant) who evidently had asked of something Sam spoke of in a recent talk; was it an example of “thought-transferrence”? No, it was simply an old maxim of his written in London ten years before that he’d made one of his texts in his speech. “The idea is pretty mouldy & commonplace. There isn’t anybody alive (or dead) who hasn’t used it from one to sixty times” [MTP].

February 6, 1906 Tuesday

Submitted by scott on
February 6 Tuesday – Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam proposing a 2 ½ to 3 ½ % royalty if she sold Paul Kester’s verson of TS. Sometime later the note is annotated “satisfactory” [MTP].

Clemens’ A.D.   for this day: Playing “The Prince and the Pauper”—Acting charades, etc. [AMT 1: 334-341].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

February 7, 1906 Wednesday

Submitted by scott on

February 7 Wednesday – The New York Times, Feb. 8, reported on another speech by Mark Twain, this one at a dinner of the American branch of the Dickens Fellowship, which was celebrating the 94 anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Sam did not mention Dickens in his speech. See also Fatout, MT Speaking 482-4.

TWAIN ON ROCKEFELLER, JR.
———
He’s All Right, but as to His Knowledge of Veracity—Well!

February 9, 1906 Friday

Submitted by scott on
February 9 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

All these days are full of interesting doings. A steady flame of delight burns through every hour; it burns—but sometimes the fog of little trying circumstances will obscure it until the wit comes to make you see right through the fog to the wonderful, wonderful flame. I don’t want any earthly thing outside of this house. And it is such a comfort to have Mr. Paine full of the love of the daily dictation, missing not a gesture—not a word—not a glance, but treasuring it all.

February 11, 1906 Sunday

Submitted by scott on

February 11 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Today hasn’t been a very gay Sunday, for Mr. Clemens went off to lunch at Mrs. Henry Holt’s with the Pumpelly’s, & then he went to see Mr. & Mrs. Rogers finishing up with dinner at the Broughtons & not reaching home until nearly 10:30” [MTP TS 28-29].

February 13, 1906 Tuesday

Submitted by scott on

February 13 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to thank an unidentified person for “the newspaper slip & for your pleasant words” [MTP].

Clemens’ A.D.   for this day: Susy’s Biography continued—Cadet of Temperance—First meeting of Mr. Clemens and Miss Langdon—Miss Olivia Langdon an invalid—Dr. Newton [AMT 1: 354-359].

February 15, 1906 Thursday

Submitted by scott on
February 15 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey.

Dear Uncle George: / I greet your 70 birthday with gratitude & enthusiasm, & with cordial wishes that there may be many happy returns of it. And next time, don’t swindle me out of my share in it, but invite me in time. I think it’s a cruelty & a shame that I can’t be there. With love to all the Trinity, … [MTP]. Note: Sam’s humor: Harvey was b. Feb. 16, 1864, making him but 42 years old.

February 16, 1906 Friday

Submitted by scott on

February 16 Friday – Sam gave a speech as the honorary head of The Ends of the Earth Club at the Savoy Hotel. The New York Times reported on p.9:  

ENDS OF EARTHERS FOREGATHER HERE AGAIN
And Astonish Mark Twain with Some Very Brief Reports.
——— ——— ———
HE AND OTHERS REMINISCE

The Author Tells How He Filled Cooper Union  39 Years Ago—150 Globe Trotters at Dinner.

February 17, 1906 Saturday

Submitted by scott on
February 17 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam sent his autograph on a small card to an unidentified person [MTP #10492].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Today Mr. Clemens said that ‘Poultney Bigelow’s father is trying to pin him to a square mile of this earth. Trying to have him settle on the old Bigelow estate for the summer. It’s somewhere up on the Hudson’” [MTP TS 31-32].

February 18, 1906 Sunday

Submitted by scott on
February 18 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote verse to an unidentified person. A draft survives:

For your love has the power of the fabled purse
That wrought charms in the old romaunt
Who had it might live in a shack or worse
And feed on dreams & air dew & verse
Yet never could he know want [MTP].

Sam also wrote to daughter Clara in Atlantic City, N.J. referring to the President’s daughter, Clara’s illness and other matters.  

February 20, 1906 Tuesday

Submitted by scott on
February 20 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. Sam directed Isabel Lyon to write to William McCutchan Morrison, Congo missionary, in Lexington, Va.: “I thank him very much for his letter, and I hope that the agitation of the Congo question will bear fruit. I think the promise looks good in England” [MTP].

Clemens’ A.D.   for this day: About Rear-Admiral Charles Wilkes–And meeting Anson Burlingame in Honolulu [AMT 1: 367-369].

February 21, 1906 Wednesday

Submitted by scott on
February 21 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam added a PS to his Feb. 20 to Gertrude Natkin:

Mr. Powlison has been here, & he is a charming man. Of course he persuaded me. The date is March 4, 3.30 p.m., at the Majestic Theatre. You & your mother will be shown to the box, as per the order which I sent you, & you will find Miss Lyon & her mother there. Mr. P. has to provide a clergyman to furnish respectability, & I will take care of the rest of the show myself.

February 24, 1906 Saturday

Submitted by scott on

February 24 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka. “Saturday. Many thanks. The books have come. I am fully equipped for the voyage now. SL. Clemens” [MTP].  Note: since Sam was not planning any voyage, the reference may be rhetorical.