Day By Day Dates

June 13 Thursday – After mailing his letter of the prior day to Liverpool and learning that Sam went to London, not Liverpool, H.H. Rogers wrote again from Vichy, France, essentially repeating his news and plans of the prior letter, signing “Admiral” [MTHHR 628].

Isabel Lyon’s journal summary: Lyon went to Redding but refused to allow a female to drive her from Branchville to the new house site, as she’d been in two accidents prior with female drivers. Finally a male was there to drive her:

June 14 Friday – On board the Minneapolis en route to England Sam wrote an aphorism for German cartoonist Peter Richards, who was returning to Berlin after working for various US newspapers for two decades: “Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / For / Mr. Richards / June 14/07.” [MTP]. Note: see June 16 for more on Richards.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: All day I have been thinking about the little Redding house, and it is a good thing again to have something to take my mind away from loneliness.

June 15 Saturday – On board the Minneapolis en route to England Sam gave a reading from his Autobiography MS, though it is not known just what he read [Fatout, MT Speaking 676].     Written across the top of the second and third pages of a concert program held in the saloon in aid of the Seaman’s Orphanage at 8:30 p.m.: “Please tell the story of the twins, one got drunk and affected the other” [MTP]. Note: Source gives this as to Carlotta Welles.

June 16 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: It’s a hot Sunday night and I’m sitting in Santa’s music room. The sounds from the streets would make one think of a terrible carnival; for the automobiles whirl along with toots and siren calls and trumpettings and now there is a motorcycle zipping down toward Washington Square and small boys are making whistles of grass blades and as I glance out of the window couples—and couples—forever saunter past. It is I alone who sit companionless [MTP TS 70].

June 17 Monday – The last night on board the Minneapolis en route to England, Sam wrote a poem on the back of a menu to Carlotta Welles:

There’s many a maid that’s dear & sweet,

In Paris, Versailles, Marly

But not one maid in any of those before-mentioned towns

That can compare with Charley. / M.T.

Front seat—don’t forget [MTAq 41].

June 18 Tuesday – The S.S. Minneapolis docked at Tilbury, England at 4 a.m.

Just after 10 a.m., Sam came down the gangplank and was roused by the lusty cheers of the stevedores. In a few minutes he first met George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) on the dock. The Pall Mall Gazette, p. 7, reported:

“G.B.S.” AND MARK TWAIN.

FIRST MEETING OF TWO GREAT MEN

THE PALMIST’S PREDICTION.

——— ——— ———

June 19 Wednesday – Paine gives us Sam’s busy schedule the day after his arrival:

Sir Thomas Lipton and Bram Stoker, old friends, were among the first to present themselves, and there was no break in the line of callers.

June 20 Thursday – Sam pulled off a breach of etiquette at 8 a.m. that was widely reported, and one Livy would undoubtedly have scolded him for. New York Times, June 21, p.1, dateline June 20, London:  

TWAIN STARTLES LONDON.

Strolls in Bathrobe and Bare Legs from Hotel for a Plunge.

Special Cablegram.

Copyright, 1907, by THE NEW YORK TIMES CO.

June 20 or 27 — M.A. FitzGerald wrote from Hyde Park asking if Sam could “spare a little time?” as he “must speak with you” about an unspecified matter [MTP].

June 21 Friday – When newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic reported on Mark Twain venturing out on the street in his bathrobe (Paine calls it a “heavy brown bath robe,” the papers called it “sky-blue”) Clara Clemens cabled: “MUCH WORRIED. REMEMBER PROPRIETIES” [MTB 1384-5; IVL TS 75].  Sam replied by cable to Clara: “THEY ALL PATTERN AFTER ME. FATHER.” [MTP].

June 22 Saturday – Sam attended the Royal Garden Party at Windsor, which marked the end of Ascot week. Ten special trains were scheduled between Paddington and Windsor. The Lord Chamberlain issued the invitations. Mark Twain was accompanied by Ralph Ashcroft (left), and Mr. and Mrs. John Henniker Heaton. See insert photo [MTFWE 27].

June 23 Sunday – At Brown’s Hotel in London, Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.  

I have been having a rather perfect good time since we reached England last Tuesday morning. The first greeting was a hail & a hurrah from the stevedores on the dock; & since then I have climbed all the rounds of the ladder & shaken hands with all the grades, from the stevedores on up to king & queen.

June 24 Monday – At Brown’s Hotel in London Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote for Sam to Marie Corelli.

“Mark Twain thanks you for having saved him from the crime of high treason to literature & he will accordingly visit the tomb & house of the Bard of Avon & take luncheon with you—if it will be convenient to you—a Saturday June 29th which is the only possible date” [MTP].

June 25 Tuesday – This day’s issue of Punch was dedicated to Mark Twain, and included a full-page cartoon, by Bernard Partridge (see insert); the original would be presented to Sam at the July 9 Punch dinner by little Joy Agnew. The New York Times, June 26, 1907, p. 5, ran a Special Cablegram article on the “certification” of Mark Twain as a humorist by the publication.

MARK TWAIN HUMOR APPROVED BY PUNCH

June 26 Wednesday – The big day in Oxford, England: The Encoeonia (conferring of degrees) took place at the Sheldonian Theater in the morning.

Exactly one month later, Sam wrote of the affair:

June 27 Thursday – Sam attended the Oxford Pageant. The Oxford Chronicle, June 28, p.16, “Yesterday at the Pageant” reported Sam’s appearance at 3:45 p.m. The London Daily Express, reported on the gala event, (June 28, p. 1, “Pageant in the Mist”) and on Mark Twain’s attendance:

The first performance of the Oxford Pageant began yesterday [June 27] in a blaze of glory, and closed—amid cheers—in a Scotch mist.

June 28 Friday – Though all 27 days Sam spent in England were busy, Sam labeled this day as especially so. From Sam’s A.D. for July 30:

June 29 Saturday – The London Times on July 1, ran “Mark Twain and the Savage Club” about the Lord Mayor of London giving a dinner with Mark Twain as guest, Saturday night (June 29) at the Savage Club. But first, Sam had to travel to Stratford for a luncheon and be trapped by Marie Corelli. Sam’s own words are the best account of the event, which he tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of:

June 30 Sunday – At Brown’s Hotel In London Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.    

July to August – Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “The Force of ‘Suggestion’” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi, 51-54].

July – Sometime after his return to Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick [MTP].

In London Sam inscribed a photograph of himself in front of the House of Parliament, to I. Benjamin Stone [MTP].  

July 1 Monday – Clara Clemens and Isabel Lyon were on board the Red Cross liner Rosalind from New York off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia when it collided with the coast steamer Senlac. The Rosalind was not damaged, but the other vessel was, all passengers escaping to the Rosalind. “Miss Clemens says that, instead of going to St. John’s, as she intended, she will return to New York” [NY Times, July 2, p.2, “Steamer Run Down by Liner Rosalind”]. See IVL’s journal entry below.

July 2 Tuesday – Ashcroft’s note: “Lunched with Henniker-Heaton, M.P., at the House of Commons; dined with Mr. and Mrs. Harry Brittain at the Savoy” [MTFWE 85].

The London Evening News, July 2, p.1, reported on Sam’s doings for the day.

MARK TWAIN AT WESTMINSTER.

Smoking the cigar which would seem never to go out, Dr. Mark Twain drove in a taximo to his photographer-in-ordinary, Mr. H. Walter Barnett, of Knightsbridge.

July 3 Wednesday – Ashcroft’s note: “Wednesday, July 3. Luncheon with George Bernard Shaw; dined with Moberly Bell” [MTFWE 88].

In London, Sam lunched with Mr. and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw at their flat in Adelphi Terrace. Also at the luncheon were Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Prof. Archibald Henderson, who had sailed over with Sam to gather biographical information on Shaw [London Tribune, July 4, p.6; London Daily Mail, July 4, p.5].

Sam’s A.D. of Aug. 23, 1907 covered the Shaw luncheon:

July 4 Thursday – London. Ashcroft’s notes: “Lunched at Sir James Knowles’s; attended the banquet in celebration of Independence Day at the Hotel Cecil” [MTFWE 91].

July 5 Friday – Ashcroft’s notes: “Dined with Lord and Lady Portsmouth. Forty or fifty guests; two or three hundred came in afterward” [MTB 1399; MTFWE 108]. Note: Earl and Countess of Portsmouth (Newton and Beatrice Wallop). London’s Daily Telegraph, July 6, p.12, “LONDON DAY BY DAY” reported the event plus what the Countess had called a “small party” when inviting Sam.