Day By Day Dates

May 21 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today the King went to see Jean, making a day of it and came home weary at 7 o’clock. He had a talk with Dr. Sharp who said that only physicians know that the present Czar is an epileptic; people would pity him more if they knew of his terrible malady [MTP TS 58].

May 22 Wednesday – Fatout lists a dinner speech in honor of George B. Harvey, Sam’s publisher. No particulars are given and none were found, neither did Lyon mention it in her journal entry below [676].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today the King went to Tuxedo and I stayed on because Santa needed a chaperon and I needed to do a lot of extra things.

May 23 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam sent two telegrams to George Thomson Wilson, Secretary of the Pilgrim Club, N.Y. branch that he would be glad to be the guest of the London Pilgrims for lunch any date between June 18 and June 28; his second note asked Wilson to cable the London Pilgrims to pin the luncheon date to either June 21 or 22, and cable Sam their acceptance [MTP].

May 24 Friday – Tuxedo, N.Y.: Isabel Lyon’s journal: The King was glad to have me come home again, and said he had not been able to fraternize with his food because it isn’t pleasant to eat alone.

May 25 Saturday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam drafted a telegram to George Thomson Wilson, Secretary of the Pilgrim Club, N.Y. branch: “Please cable Secretary Brittain for me 25 suits me exactly” [MTP].

May 26 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam replied to daughter Jean, whose incoming is not extant.  

It saddened me, too, dearest Jean, to go away from you, & it has saddened me since to think about it. But I hope this is the last far journey I shall ever have to take. And indeed I would not take this one if I could avoid it.

May 27 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Marjorie Bowen (pseud. for Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long) giving his London address, Brown’s Hotel.  

“I shall be in England 10 days—June 18–28—& I think you will have to do as the American girls do: waive youth, sex, & the other conventions, & call on me. Yes, & telephone me when you are coming: otherwise we shall fail to collide, for I shall be a very busy person” [MTP: Cyril Clemens, Mark Twain: The Letter Writer, 1932 p.130].

May 28 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Went to town” [MTP TS 60].

Frederick D. Wardle wrote to Sam (c/o Chatto & Windus) on Town Clerk’s Office, Guildhall, Bath stationery to Sam.

May 29 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

May 30 Thursday – Sam replied to Harper’s of May 29: Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “If the London people will just ask C&W [Chatto & Windus] they will find that they can let Harpers know. They transferred” [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Days and weeks are passing and I am not writing a word about the most wonderful creature in the world, but I’ll try to hark back. He is in love with Tuxedo.

May 31 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Robert Underwood Johnson. “M . Clemens asks me to say that he cannot serve an active part in the Academy, & so regrets that he is not able to send in any nominations. He believed that his Silence would be an answer” [MTP].

June – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean, who evidently was dissatisfied at Katonah, and also unhappy with Isabel V. Lyon.  

June 1 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Will came out today and there was very great music in the afternoon. The piano is down in hall and from my 3rd story I slipped down a flight, I had on a long thin black silk gown that made a little swish, just enough for the King who stood in his underdrawers in the 2nd hall, to hear and make him look up at me with his eyes shining with delight. He had come home from Mary Rogers’s and had gone to bed tired.

June 2 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Santa left at 3:14 and I came back to build a fire in my study and to settle down and read Dr. Long’s reply to Roosevelt’s attack on his books of nature[.] I went to sleep in the chaise lounge and rested some weary things within me, and went down at 7 o’clock to a solitary dinner, for the King had lunched with the Rogers’s. To my delight the King came wandering into the room with the salad, and then he talked steadily until after 10.

June 3 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Chatto & Windus. “M . Clemens asks me to write for him & say that he must refer you to the London Harpers, and say to them that he has no objection himself to the cheaper edition of the three books you mention; but that as he is a sort of partner of the Harpers, he cannot give his consent without consulting them” [MTP].

Sam also wrote an invitation to H.H. Rogers, Jr. and Mary B. Rogers, also in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.

June 4 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We dined with the Ronalds’s tonight. She was like a pretty marquise, and it was nice to fly along home in the electric jigger. The King was in behind a bank of green stuff and so I couldn’t see him at all, but he wore his white clothes, and was beautiful to look upon.

I came home very much exhausted and threw myself on the bed in my evening gown to read a letter from Mother…[MTP TS 64].

June 5 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight we dined at the Mortimers in a very beautiful house, 16 of us. I sat between Dr. Rushmore and Mr. Pell, and had a very good time. They have wonderful pewter there and great stone carved fireplaces. It was a very formal dinner, and so the King wore black.

Tomorrow we start for N.Y. [MTP TS 65]. Note: Edward C. Rushmore. The Tuxedo Club 1908 book lists five men named Pell; Herbert C. Pell as a founder of the Club.

June 6 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today we came into town to begin the preparations for England. It’s a good thing that Ashcroft can go with him, but it has been making me heart- sick I think. I drifted into a headache and staggered about the house, but went down to dinner. Mr. Wark was here, and Mr. Paine, and after dinner the King led the way at once to the billiard room. I sat with those 2 sweet children for awhile and they gave me a ring, a lapis lazuli, in a quaint setting.

June 7 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote a dedication to Steve Gillis: “To / Steve Gillis / with the unabated love / of his oldest friend— / Mark Twain / New York, June 7, 1907” [MTP].

June 8 Saturday – Clara Clemens’ 33rd birthday. She saw her father off for England [MTB 1381]

June 8-17 Monday – On board the S.S. Minneapolis en route to England, Sam wrote to Carlotta Welles (whom he dubbed “Charlie”) on a calling card:

“Charlie, dear, you don’t know what you are missing. There’s more than two thousand porpoises in sight, & eleven whales, & sixty icebergs, & both Dippers, & seven rainbows, & all the battleships of all the navies, & me. / SLC” [MTAq 40].

Sam’s A.D. of July wrote of the voyage and of Carlotta (Charlie):  

June 9 Sunday –  Isabel Lyon’s journal: Ah, it was fortunate that Santa and Will [Charles E. Wark] and I went off for a holiday up to the Bronx and to drive at—I cannot remember where. I believe my little remaining reason would have gone for I was growing lonelier with every hour, if we had not had real and new diversion. I shall stay on here until Thurs. or Friday, for now that C.C. has put all the house-keeping into my hands I shall begin tomorrow with these upper rooms [MTP TS 66].

June 10 Monday – Peter Richards drew a sketch of Mark Twain sometime during the voyage. See insert, captioned: “Sketched from life by P. Richards.” 

June 11 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning a man name o’ Johnson came in to talk to me about the King’s first editions. He was sent by Cartoonist Opper to AB, but not finding either he “bumped the bumps himself” and came along. He wants to make a bibliography of the King’s books. He sees money in it and wants to take me into a kind of partnership—“graft”—the King will say for I have written him a scrap of a note about it. I am so grateful for work, hard work, for now the loneliness is greater as Santa is ill with tonsillitis, really wretchedly ill.

June 12 Wednesday – H.H. Rogers replied from Vichy, France to Sam, likely to his May 29 from Tuxedo Park. He’d rec’d Sam’s letter and thought they would meet in London as he was also invited by Lancaster of Liverpool to the Pilgrim’s Luncheon. Rogers family’s plans were to go to Paris on June 19 and to London on June 23, then on to Liverpool on June 27 and sail from Queenstown the next day. He announced if Sam wished to return with them they’d be delighted: “The only essentials this time will be drunkenness, profanity and sodomy” [MTP].