Day By Day Dates

March 9 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Yesterday came a letter from AB containing a beautiful tribute to the King. I’ll keep it right here. The King was sweetly moved by it. He lies in bed a lot these days when he isn’t flitting around the billiard table. He played all the afternoon, or much of it after Mr. Stanchfield who had been lunching here left us. This morning I sat in the King’s dressing room while he shaved, & went over the batch of mail there.

March 10 Sunday – Franklin and Harriet Whitmore ended their three-day visit at 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. with Sam [Mar. 12 to Clara].

March 11 Monday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Mar. 1 reqeust from Calvin H. Higbie, enclosing the MS Higbie had sent the previous summer. Higbie had lost his copy. Sam also wanted to clarify Albert Bigelow Paine’s legitimate position as his biographer with Higbie, who evidently had misunderstood his role. Paine was “well on his way to California” [MTP].

March 12 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, who evidently had chided him for wearing his white suit in public.  

Clara dear, your impression was right. The white clothes are for home use, and are not to be worn outside, except at the tables of very intimate friends.

Your growing popularity does certainly give me a good many pangs, and yet I want it to continue, and increase. It is curious, but I feel just so about it.

March 13 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: The check has gone off for the Bermuda tickets, & we are to sail on Saturday. Mr. Howells came in to see the King this afternoon & said that Mrs. Howells is proposing to go to Bermuda on the 28th, but that he has to pretend indifference, otherwise she’d back down at once. For tht’s what she always does. It’s her illness that causes her to oppose anything that Mr. Howells wants to do.

March 14 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning I mentioned R.U. Johnson not being at a meeting & the King let on to be astonished, & he said “Oh Jesus, No Johnson. Undershirt!” Mr. Rogers arrived pretty early & the King was in the bathroom; he came along the hall in his night clothes & his old red slippers, saying “Oh yes, oh yes, I reckon you’ll find that somebody else is up just as early as you are” & then as the door closed, followed the usual affectionate abuse of each other.

March 15 Friday – Sam sat for A.F. Bradley, a New York photographer. Isabel Lyon’s journal recorded the event:

March 16 Saturday – Sam, Isabel Lyon, and the “pretty young girl” Paddy Madden left on the Bermudian. The trip would be a five-day getaway for Sam, who was suffering from gout, but all but one day would be on board the ship. Also on the outward voyage Charles W. Eliot (1834-1926), president of Harvard, and Thomas D. Peck, woolen manufacturer from Pittsfield, Mass., were on board. Sam and Peck conducted a lottery on the ship to benefit the Cottage Hospital in Bermuda, the only civilian one there [D. Hoffman 78-9].

March 17 Sunday – Sam was en route to Bermuda on the Bermudian. It was now a two-day voyage.

March 18 Monday – Sam, Isabel Lyon, and Paddy Madden reached Bermuda.

March 19 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We sailed away again this morning. We had a darling time when leaving time came, for every one way paying court to the King, and photographing him. We flew over to Trinningham’s [D. Hoffman shows this as Trimingham’s] and bought him a nice panama hat, one like Binny’s, and Binny was struggling with an Irish flag to hoist to the top of his hired boat in Paddy’s honor and altogether it was charming. The afternoon before there had been some good talk with Mr.

March 20 Wednesday – Sam was on the Bermudian en route to N.Y.C. Isabel Lyon’s journal: “A beautiful rough day” [MTP TS 41].

Arthur E. Bullard for Friends of Russian Freedom wrote to advise Sam they were organizing on a national basis and requested he be on their executive committee [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “I am in full sympathy with the movement & am willing to have my name used, but as I am too full of duties I cannot furnish any active service”

March 21 Thursday – The Bermudian docked in N.Y.C.  Sam returned home to  21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. and sent a telegram to Lilian W. Aldrich in Boston:

“I have just learned to-night with the deepest sorrow of your heavy bereavement & I tender the heartfelt sympathy of an old friend who always loved him, & who would comfort you if any words of his could do it” [MTP].

March 22 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote an introductory note for Frederick Upham Adams (representing Harper’s) to Dr. John S. Billings. The introduction was “upon library business” [MTP].

March 23 Saturday – Fatout lists Sam giving a Pilgrim’s dinner speech at the Ambassador James Bryce Dinner, Waldorf-Astoria, N.Y.C. [MT Speaking 676]. Particulars below:

The New York Sun, Mar. 24, p.4, “Bryce Guest of Pilgrims” reported the event but does not mention any speech by Mark Twain. In part (with all mentions of Mark Twain):  

BRYCE GUEST OF PILGRIMS.

GREETINGS AT DINNER TO THE

BRITISH AMBASSADOR.

——— ———

March 24 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: A lazy recuperative day, I think. I have never been so exhausted as just now. I was telling the King this morning how mother who spends her winters near here changed her boarding house by herself and got into a house of questionable character and he told me of how when Mr. And Mrs. Twichell were in London many years ago, they spent a week in a house of prostitution and would probably be there yet, if some friend hadn’t taken them out [MTP TS 44].

March 25 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Miss Marjorie Bowen (pseud.)

Indeed I shall be more pleased than you can think, to have “The Master of Stair” dedicated to me. It is lovely of you to conceive of this fine compliment for me, & I highly value the impulse that moved you to it. You are a wonderful girl, & I hope there is a long life before you to keep on proving it in. / With the very best wishes …. [MTP]. Note: see Nov. 20, 1906.

March 26 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: A long and enthusiastic letter from AB, who finds Carson City very interesting and so full of matter than he had to send for Mrs. P and Joy [his youngest dau.] to see it with him. C.C. came home late last night. She is a made over creature with happiness and success and music running rampantly through her veins. What a creature she is, and how beautiful [MTP TS 44].

March 27 Wednesday – Sam attended a luncheon at the St. Regis Hotel given by Count Arthur de Jcherep-Spiridovitch (1851-1926), who eulogized the Russian Czar. Sam paid some compliments in introducing the Count. The New York Times, Mar. 28, p.9 reported the event. Evidently, Mark Twain’s remarks were not recorded.

March 28 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

March 29 before – William L. Bryan (1860-1955), philosopher, author, president of Indiana University (1902-1937), wrote to Sam. Bryan was a cousin to Joseph Bryan, a friend of Twain’s and a Mississippi River pilot from 1850-1900.

March 30 Saturday – Isabel Lyon replied to Ferris Greenslet’s Mar. 26 request for letters of Thomas Bailey Aldrich: “We are a homeless family for so many years that not many letters were kept—but such as he has you are welcome to take—when Mr. Paine comes back in about a month” [MTP]. Note: this is catalogued “after Mar. 27,” the day of receipt, but is specifically given to Mar. 30 by Greenslet’s May 21 letter.

March 31 Sunday – The New York Times, p. SM3 ran a feature article, “Mark Twain’s Wanderings At An End.” Here is the first part of a narration that reviewed Mark Twain’s life and residences:

MARK TWAIN’S WANDERINGS AT AN END

In His Seventy-third Year He Prepares to Build a Home of His Own and Settle Down—

Strange Record of Temporary Sojourn in Many Places and Countries.

April – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed an aphorism in Vol. 1 of the Hillcrest Edition of his works to Julia Langdon Barber: “To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler—and less trouble. / Mark Twain / Mrs. A.L. Barber, May, 1907” [MTP].  

Sam also inscribed in a copy of CS to Dorothy Butes: “For Dorothy, / with the affectionate regards of / The Author. / April/07” [MTP]. Note: See Apr. 22 for inscription of CS also to Butes, which suggests this also done that day.  

April 1 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The King came back today with Col. Harvey and he seemed tired. These visitings are a little hard on him. After all he says, “His own bed is so much the best one for him and his own atmosphere” [MTP TS 47].

Carl Kelsey for American Academy of Political and Social Sciences wrote to Sam [MTP]. Note: See Apr. 5 for Sam’s reply.