Day By Day Dates

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)

October 24, 1906 Wednesday

October 24 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers.

Dear Mrs. Rogers, it is lovely of you! Yes, Mr. Coe is the very man. He will know the exact size of the Fairhaven table, & can duplicate it. When he examines this room I think he will say it is large enough: it is 15 feet wide by 18 long, & the 18 can be increased to 18.6 if necessary, by removing a bookcase.

October 26, 1906 Friday

October 26 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

It is with mighty pleasure that I record the fact that you will spend Nov. 9 & 10 (& as many days thereafter as you can spare), under this roof. We will gather some more stags together & eat, drink & get drunk, understanding that on some happy to-morrow we die & are likely to be damned. I am very very glad you are coming, old man [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

October 27, 1906 Saturday

October 27 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

The King came down while Mrs. Crane & I were at breakfast to say that Mr. Leigh Hunt has invited him to go to Egypt for the winter—to spend his days & weeks on the Nile, & to take with him whomsoever he will. It will mean to take with him a stenographer & a biographer. He couldn’t take me because I’m needed at this base of action, although he says he wishes to take me. I’m so stunned.

October 28-31, 1906

October 28-31 – Sometime between these dates George C. Riggs and Kate Douglas Riggs sent Sam and Clara Clemens an invitation to meet Mr. & Mrs. Forbes Robertson, Sunday, Nov. 4 at 9:15 p.m. [MTP]. Note: possibly Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937), English actor, considered the finest Hamlet of the Nineteenth Century. Robertson got his start by playing second fiddle to the great Sir Henry Irving.


 

October 30, 1906 Tuesday

October 30 Tuesday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Ralph W. Ashcroft, in care of the advertising agent for Canadian Pacific railway, Montreal: “Mr. Clemens is indefinitely bedridden with bronchitis & has been persuaded to give up the trip to Egypt entirely” [MTP].

Note: see Nov. 7 to Mary Rogers.

November 1906

November – In N.Y.C. Sam inscribed a copy of Eve’s Diary to Elbert Hubbard: “Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economise it. Truly yours Mark Twain. To Elbert Hubbard, Nov./06.” [MTP: Parke-Bernet Galleries Catlogs, 25 Feb. 1938, Item 40].  

Henry Hahn, Sven Riars, Agnede Larsen, Cecilic Kiar, & Bassemig wrote from Copenhagen, Denmark for birthday wishes to Sam [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Answered”; Lyon wrote “Answer / Dec 5”

November 3, 1906 Saturday

November 3 Saturday – Either this day or the next Sam took a train trip of an hour-plus and visited daughter Jean in her Katonah, N.Y. sanitarium [Nov. 5 to Emilie Rogers].

Andrew Carnegie wrote to Sam. “So glad to learn that you are yourself again, back in town running about able ‘to take sustenance’ . Delighted to attend at dinner. / I hope we are going to snow under that Reprobate Hearst—His article upon Gilder roused my ire. / Yours Ever…” [MTP]. Note: see Carnegie’s Nov. 2 “invitation.”

November 5, 1906 Monday

November 5 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).

The billiard table is better than the doctors. It is driving out the heartburn in a most promising way. I have a billiardist on the premises, & I walk not less than ten miles every day with the cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole of the exercise, nor the most health-giving part of it, I think. Through the multitude of the positions & attitudes it brings into play every muscle in the body & exercises them all.

November 6, 1906 Tuesday

November 6 Tuesday – Rev. William Fitz-Simon of St. Mary’s Rectory, NYC wrote to Sam.

It was so kind, and doubtless characteristic of you to remember the clergy. The crown jewels reached me through Rushmore[‘]s hands and you have my sincere gratitude.

November 8, 1906 Thursday

November 8 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean.

It is a gray morning, Jean dear, and I have awakened prematurely.

I have been coughing only 8 or 9 days, yet I am already more than half tired of it. This is because it’s not sentimental or sympathetic, but is a dry bark like tan-bark. I do not go out of the house yet; I go down stairs, but not frequent

[segment about the Nov. 7 dinner party]

November 10, 1906 Saturday

November 10 Saturday – Sam  wrote of  playing billiards until 1:15 a.m.: “I got but poor sleep afterwards & was pretty tired next day. I stayed home at night [Nov. 10] & did not go to the Alden feed. Those who went to it did not reach their beds until 4 a.m.—Howells & Paine included—but Aldrich got here at 2 a.m.” [Nov. 13 to Jean].   

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

T.B. Aldrich is so disappointing in appearance & in qualities of all kinds that go to make up the literary man bearing a high reputation.

November 12, 1906 Monday

November 12 Monday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote to Harriet E. Whitmore.

The darling wonderful White King isn’t out of the house yet. It wasn’t a bad bronchitis, but it housed him well & on Saturday when Thomas Bailey Aldrich was here—(he came Friday & left Sunday) the King hopped around without many clothes on & so added to his bronchial condition which finished with heavy coughing again. But again he is better.

November 13, 1906 Tuesday

November 13 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean , in Katonah, N.Y. “Jean dear, since I wrote the other day, conditions have not changed—at least for the better. They stopped me from playing billiards & I have been in bed ever since.” Sam then told of his “Stag dinner party” of Nov. 9, and of being tired on Nov. 10 from playing billiards until the wee hours, and of not going to Henry M. Alden’s dinner party celebrating his 70 . He was ordered to bed by Dr. Halsey. He finished with:

November 14, 1906 Wednesday

November 14 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Ill on this day” [MTP TS 146].

Fanny Flint Conradson wrote from Franklin, Pa. to Sam. She, like many others, had read in the NY Herald of his bronchitis. She was a lifelong fan of his books since IA. Now she was a “twisted cripple” but owed much to his books for lightening her load.

November 15, 1906 Thursday

November 15 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal noted she was still ill [MTP TS 146].

J.G. Babb Secretary for University of Missouri wrote to Sam requesting his portrait, though it must be “approved by a committee competent to pass on its artistic merit” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “No answer – the terms of the letter being uncourteous to the verge of brutality.”