August 31 Saturday – Sam sent a telegram to Dorothy Quick:

September – Bookman (NY) ran a sour article, “Mark Twain’s Publicity R.I.P.” p. 9-10. Tenney: “‘Mark Twain’s work,’ said one British writer when British applause was at its loudest, ‘has absolutely no connection with literature,’ and some of it ‘has for sheer concentrated vulgarity never been beaten’; and it was a pity, said another, that Oxford did not honor Henry James instead. The American press reported only England’s praise when MT visited.

September 1 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Albert Langen.

September 2 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: The King had been up in my study telephoning to Dorothy [Quick] this morning, & when we went back to his room to go on with the morning business we found the smell of tobacco pretty strong & he said it smelt “as if a stuffy old archangel had been in there”. I told him that Santa & I love the smell of an archangel. He said “yes, the smell of young ones, but not the stale old ones.”

September 3 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Dorothy arrived. / Such a very very nice dinner at the Sampsons. Mr. [Charles E.] Sampson is the head of that house, for even the fine beautiful table linen is exquisitely marked with his initials & the silver too, has his lettering. He was very delightful. He told me how when he was a boy he crossed from Europe on the steamer with Emerson & how dear Emerson was, waiting on his sister who was an invalid [MTP TS 99- 100].

September 4 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to William Webster Ellsworth.

September 5 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, now at the Hotel Victoria, Boston.   

I, also, should have been disappointed dearheart, at your not coming, but that I am aware that there is no occasion to expect you until you arrive. And so while I knew you might come, & was strongly hoping you would, I was not really expecting it. Paine’s conundrum fits you as well as it fits me: “Why is Mr. Clemens’s mind like a time-table?”

“Because it is subject to change without notice.”

September 6 Friday – In his A.D. of Oct. 5, Sam wrote of having Dorothy Quick this week as a guest.

…we had her delightful society during seven days and nights. She is just eleven years old, and seems to be made of watch-springs and happiness. The child was never still a moment, when she wasn’t asleep, and she lit up this place like the sun. It was a tremendous week, and an uninterruptedly joyful one for us all. After she was gone, and silence and solitude had resumed their sway, we felt as if we had been through a storm in heaven.

September 7 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Dinner at the Deacons, and it was very lovely. I sat between Mr. Deacon and Mr. Condert, the latter is very interesting, and we bored each other to a nicety. But Mr. Deacon always has some good prosy interesting thing to talk about. He was telling me about Vernon Lee, and her extreme plainness and her delightfulness; and about her half brother Mr. Hamilton. He met them in Florence years ago, at a time when Hamilton was a great invalid; so great an invalid that the doctors could do no more for him.

September 8 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote his june-bug…bird of paradise aphorism to Dorothy Quick [MTP].

September 9 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Samuel E. Moffett. “Mr. Clemens asks me to thank you for sending to Washington for the lists for him.It was a pity you missed him so frequently, but we shall be back in New York about the first of November, not before I believe” [MTP].

September 10 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “No. C.S. advertisements” [MTP TS 102].

Kate B. Lee wrote to ask Sam to write a piece on seasickness, as she suffered from it for two whole days and couldn’t explain it to friends [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Sept. 16, ‘07”

September 11 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I had what the King calls “an adventure” this rainy morning. A Mr. Ullman, a man who does writing for newspaper syndicates came out by appointment to see me and so write an article about the way the King spends his day. He was planning to make it seem as if he had really had “a day with Mark Twain” and only after continued determination on my part would he consent to have the interview come through me. He is to submit his ms. to me. When that was promised I could and did talk freely and we had a very good time.

September 12 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick who had left with Miss Lyon for New York City. Clemens added to the letter on Sept. 13 and 14. “Dorothy dear, you are gone, & I am dissatisfied” [MTAq 62].

September 13 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Sept. 12 to Dorothy Quick.

You are still gone, & I am still dissatisfied.

Subsequently.

You are still gone, & I am still more dissatisfieder than ever. This is a long day.

Homeward the bandit plods her weary way and leaves the world to darkness & to me.

September 14 Saturday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Sept.12, 13 to Dorothy Quick.

Which I did [go to bed]. But a cricket was hiding somewhere in the room, & continuously & monotonously shrieking. I endured it an hour (until 10), then removed to another room. I returned at 11, at 1, at 4, but was drivenout each time.

Last night he drove me out at 9.30, & I returned no more. To-night Miss Lyon will occupy my room, & capture him if possible.

September 15 Sunday – Sam inscribed a copy of IA with his “truth….economise” aphorism to Miss Josephine S. Hobby, his stenographer for his autobiographical dictations [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: I wrote a poem for T.

September 16 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning the King went away on the 11:50 train to be met by Ashcroft and go by the New Bedford boat “Maine”, up to Fairhaven to see Mr. Rogers, who has been a very ill man. The King looked very handsome in his pale grey travelling suit. I was left as I always am, with a great sense of loneliness, as the jigger went noisily away.

September 17 Tuesday – Sam left on the steamer Maine for New Bedford, Mass. to be a guest of H.H. Rogers at his Fairhaven home. Rogers was quite ill after a stroke [NY Times, Sept. 18, p.1].

H. H. ROGERS DRIVES AUTO.

———

Has Mark Twain as Guest—Said to be Crippled by Apoplexy.

Special to The New York Times.

September 18 Wednesday – Sam was in Fairhaven, Mass. visiting the Rogers family.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “T replied to the poem” [MTP TS 106].

Helen M. De Muth wrote from Crofton, Pa to Sam, sending him a photo of her (which also included Dorothy Quick) taken on the Minnetonka, [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Sept. 18, ‘07”

September 19 Thursday – Sam, in Fairhaven, Mass., wrote the date and his signature in a book for blottings, “The Ghosts of My Friends”—possibly to General and Mrs. Edward McCook [MTP].

Isabel Lyon wrote to Dorothy Quick 

September 20 Friday – Sam left Fairhaven, Mass. early in the morning on the Kanawha. H.H. Rogers did not accompany him, but Harry and Mary Rogers did [NY Times, Sept. 21, p.18]. Sam arrived in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. in the evening and wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.

September 21 Saturday – Early in the morning Sam left Tuxedo Park for N.Y.C., where he boarded the Kanawha and left for Jamestown, Va. with Harry Rogers and his wife Mary

Benjamin Rogers, to attend the Robert Fulton Day celebration. Sam would preside at the ceremonies.

September 22 Sunday – The New York Times, “Mark Twain Skipper of Rogers’s Yacht,” p.9 reported the Kanawha and Cornelius Vanderbilt’s steam yacht North Star leaving for Jamestown.

September 23 Monday – Norfolk, Va. Sam introduced Rear Admiral Purnell Frederick Harrington (1844-1937) at the Robert Fulton Day ceremonies. The New York Times, Sept. 24 covered the event:

HONOR FULTON AT JAMESTOWN

———

Inventor’s Use of Steam in Navigation Shown in Marine Parade.