Day By Day Dates

August 15 Monday – Sam was in N.Y.C. and had planned to go to Great Neck, Long Island to stay with the Broughtons, but was fatigued with taking care of business so went to bed at 8 p.m. and delayed the trip for a day [Aug. 18 to Loomis].

Livy’s last will and testament was filed in N.Y.C. The New York Times, Aug. 16, p.7 noted:

MRS. CLEMENS LEFT $35,000. ——

Author’s Wife Willed Property to Him and Two Children.

August 16 Tuesday – Sam stayed the night in with the Broughtons in their country place in Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y. [17 Aug. to Lyon, Aug. 18 to Loomis].

August 17 Wednesday – Sam returned to N.Y.C.. and signed a three-year lease with James A. Renwick for the house at 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. at $3,500 per year [Hill 97]. He checked in on Clara again at Dr. Parry’s, and learned that Jean was on crutches in Lee, Mass. He then returned to Great Neck [Aug. 18 to HHR; Aug. 18 to Loomis]. Note: the house would undergo repairs and be ready for the remaining Clemens family in November. Insert of 21 Fifth Ave.(corner; next to Brevoort House).

August 18 Thursday – In Great Neck, N.Y. Sam wrote to his niece, Julia Langdon Loomis (Mrs.Edward Eugene Loomis).

Julie dear, I was not able to leave town Monday afternoon in compliance with my engagement —I was worn out & broken down, so I gave up & went to bed at 8 in the evening. Next morning I reached your house by 9 or half-past, but you were gone: you, & Edward & all the dear Idas. I should have been very very glad of a glimpse.

August 19 Friday – Albert Bigelow Paine wrote to Sam. “Proofs with two extracts from your letters to Nast just came in. I enclose slip— / I think there are one or two more, later” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “These are unobjectionable”; the enclosed sheets with MT’s letter excerpts to Nast, are not dated in the text, but from the cues are: “Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigous victory for Grant,” which is letter of Dec. 10, 1872; and “The Almanac has come,” letter of Dec. 17, 1872.

August 20 Saturday – In a letter of July 14 Cecilia Beaux, the famous portrait artist, wrote to her friend Dorothea Gilder (dau. Richard Watson Gilder) asking to arrive this evening “for a few days.” Beaux had met Sam in London on June 1, 1900 when traveling with the Gilders (see entry). No mention of Twain appears in correspondence between the two friends, but if Beaux did in fact visit, it’s likely Sam and Cecilia saw each other sometime during the next few days [Cecilia Beaux to Dorothea Gilder Aug.

August 21 Sunday – Miss Ella McMahon in NYC wrote a short letter of condolence to Sam, enclosing a typed verse, “Not Thou But I,” by blind English poet Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887) [MTP]. File says Margaret McMahon; Ella may have been a nickname.

August 22 Monday – By this day Sam had returned to Lee, Mass. where he wrote to Susan Crane.

Susy dear, you are right: put just the dates, as you suggest—or, add “Florence, Italy” to the “June 5, 1904”— for there is a deep pathos in that far-from-home-&-friends in the simple mention of that beyond-ocean name.

August 25 Thursday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote on Plasmon Co. letterhead to Sam, now in Great Neck, Long Island at the home of Urban H. Broughton.

August 30 Tuesday – Barlow Brothers, book binders in Grand Rapids, Mich., wrote asking where they might find a book of his with the story of limburger cheese on a railroad car [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the back of the letter “Mr. Clemens knows the sketch, but doesn’t know the book its in—Harpers publish all & doubtless they can tell.”

August 31 Wednesday – Sam’s sister, Pamela Ann Moffett, died in Greenwich, Conn., age 76.

September – Sometime during the month, Clara Clemens checked herself into a sanatorium in Norfolk, Conn. Note: Clara returned at the end of the month to Dr. Parry to “continue her recuperation” [MTOW 44].

September 1 Thursday – John Hays Hammond’s handling of the Plasmon Co. of America’s near-insolvency created a dispute (see Aug. entry). A stockholders’ meeting was held on Sept. 1, and a new board of directors elected. Ralph W. Ashcroft was immediately elected general manager of the company by the new board. [Report of Cases Vol. 187 (1910): Ashcroft v. Hammond 491]. Sam may have attended, or may have given Ashcroft his proxy .

September 2 Friday – This issue of Collier’s Weekly ran a quote of Sam about Christians and voting: It will be conceded that a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. Whenever he shall do that, he will not find himself voting for an unclean man, a dishonest man. If Christians would vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease.

September 3 Saturday – In Deal Beach, N.J. Sam wrote to Louise Brownell Saunders (Mrs. A.P. Saunders) in Clinton, N.Y. (Susy’s old paramour, now married):

Dear Mrs. Saunders: / I am grateful to have those hallowed names thus consecrated, & in reverence I bow my white head before them in their new place. How long they stood for the grace & beauty & joy of life—& now, how they stand for measureless pain & loss! We are come upon evil days: may they be few! / Affectionately [MTP].

September 4 Sunday – In Deal, N.J. Sam wrote to daughter Clara (only the envelope survives) [MTP]. Note: Postmarked from Deal Beach, N.J Sept.4, 4 p.m., which shows he spent the night of Sept. 3 there, probably at Harvey’s home.

Sam returned early to N.Y.C. where he rode in the park with Clara [Sept. 4 to Crane].

Later he wrote from the Hotel Wolcott to Susan Crane.

September 5 Monday – Odoardo Luchini wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Sept. 22 reply.

September 6 Tuesday – Sam wrote an aphorism to an unidentified person: “We ought not to use our morals week-days, it gets them out of repair for Sunday / Truly Yours / Mark Twain.” Underneath this Clara Clemens offered her own aphorism: “He who finds the serpent loses himself” [MTP: Lion Hart Autographs 2007 NYC Bookfairs]

September 7 Wednesday – Clara Clemens left N.Y.C. to spend a month or so resting in Connecticut. Sam described this in his Sept. 9 to Susan Crane:

I saw Clara off, day before yesterday, to a rest-cure in Connecticut. She is to shut up 4 or 5 weeks, in bed, without books, without companionship, writing no letters, reading no letters, seeing no one but physician & nurse—a horrid solitude, with grief and memory for company [MTP].

September 9 Friday – At the Hotel Wolcott In N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.

Susy dear, the first time I ever heard “In the Sweet By and Bye,” a street-organ played it near the St. Nicholas in December 1867; & that was the first time I ever saw Livy Langdon, a sweet young slender girl & beautiful. In our engagement-year some of us often sang it, evenings, along with other songs. Present:

• Father, †
• Mother, †
• Yourself,
• Theodore, †
• Mr. Slee, †
• Hattie Lewis,
• Livy Langdon †

How many are gone!

September 10 Saturday – In N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore: “Where is the carved oak mantelpiece that stood in our library? Is it stored in Hartford?”[MTP].

September 11 Sunday – In N.Y.C. Sam replied on a banquet invitation sent by Melville Elijah Stone for the Associated Press. “Dear Mr. Stone: It is so long since I was at a banquet, that I probably shan’t know how to behave—still, I shall be there.” Sam added a request after his signature to please keep his “hotel address secret” [MTP]. Note: strangely the enclosed card was for a Sept. 22 banquet at the Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis, Ind. Sam did not travel to Indiana on that date, so the card was likely used for another event.

September 12 Monday – Carlo Paladini, journalist, wrote from Italy to Sam, hoping he was remembered, and asking for an American flag for his cottage, as he was unable to get one there; in exchange he would send “the best Chianti wine of our beloved Tuscany.” He also asked if the autobiography Sam wrote in Florence would be published, and asked after Sam’s “nice, beloved, bright daughters,” recalling Clara’s “voice of nightgale” [MTP].

September 14 Wednesday – Sam met Mr. & Mrs. H.H. Rogers at the pier as they disembarked from the Oceanic from Liverpool. The New York Times, Sept. 15, p.6, reported Rogers’ homecoming:

H. H. ROGERS HOME AGAIN. –––

Has Been Busy Having a Good Time—Mark Twain Meets Him.

September 15 Thursday – Sam, who was staying at the Hotel Wolcott in New York, accompanied by Ralph W. Ashcroft, went to see John Hays Hammond at his hotel, but discovered he was in Gloucester, Mass. Sam then sent the following telegram to Hammond:

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 1904.

JOHN HAYS HAMMOND: