November 29, 1904 Tuesday – On or about this day Sam moved into his new home at 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. and daughter Jean arrived as well.
May 5, 1905 Friday – Sam left NYC with H.H. Rogers on the yacht Kanawha for Fairhaven, Mass. [Lyon’s journal #2 TS 17; Lyon’s journal May 7]. Note: Due to learning of Clara’s impending appendectomy, Sam may have stayed in NYC. Lyon wrote that he was in Fairhaven. If he did not go with Rogers, it is then evident that Lyon did not know this.
November 26?–December 10 – Sometime during this period Sam wrote to Katharine Lampton Paxson. The letter wound up in the Kansas City Star, Jan. 28, 1907. I seem to see, through the dim vista of years, an adoring group, gathered around a beloved figure—Col. Mulberry Sellers. I must have drawn him winningly, attractively, engagingly, for within the past few years no less than six persons have presented their credentials to me as being the original Col. Mulberry Sellers. . . . . .
November 29 Tuesday – On or about this day Sam moved into his new home at 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. and daughter Jean arrived as well.
November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 69th Birthday.
C. Brereton Sharpe wrote from International Plasmon Co., London to Sam, asking him to act as their proxy for the planned American Plasmon Co. shareholders meeting of Dec. 22 [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s diary: “Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens was talking of Moncure D. Conway. He is reading Conway’s autobiography just published, and it made him hark back to the days in London 24 years ago” [Gribben 157: 1903-1906 Journal, TS 28, MTP].
December – Sam’s essay, “Saint Joan of Arc” first appeared in Harper’s Monthly (p. 3-12). It was collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].
Sam wrote a slightly edited version of the 1893 “Extract from Adam’s Diary”; it was edited to make it a companion piece to “Eve’s Diary,” and would be collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Camfield’s bibliog.].
December 1 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s diary: “This afternoon Mr. Clemens was restless and after he talked business with me, and after he played through The last rose of summer and Wagner’s Wedding March on the orchestrelle, we sat down to play 500 again. We played until tea time, and then after tea time we played until 6:45….We played 500 until eleven o’clock. Mr. Clemens won 14 games [Hill 98; TS 29, MTP]. Note: “Wedding March” from Wagner’s Lohengrin.
December 2 Friday – The National Institute of Arts and Letters, founded in 1898, cast ballots and elected seven members to the first American Academy of Arts and Letters. These were, representing literature: Samuel L. Clemens, William Dean Howells, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and John Hay; representing art: Augustus Saint-Gaudens and John La Farge; representing music, Edward MacDowell. The secretary of the Institute was none other than Robert Underwood Johnson.
December 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka. It may interest you to know that all of half of the letters I get concerning the Joan sketch are from Catholics; & are strongly (even fervently) complimentary, every time.
December 4, after – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Mr. Lee: “No, it’s lovely. I haven’t any suggestions to make” [MTP].
December 6 Tuesday – Gale puts Sam as a guest at George B. Harvey’s dinner for Henry James [Henry James Encyclopedia 683].
December 7 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal contains an entry for this date: “And then Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich came in to ask Mr. Clemens and Jean to go tonight to see a tragedy that he has recently written.” Note: The play was Judith of Bethulia, a Tragedy, which was his dramatization of an earlier poem, “Judith and Holofernes” (1896); Her Journal also contained: “This has been a day of events—for this morning Mr. [Finley Peter] Dunne came for a closeting with Mr. Clemens” [Gribben 16: 1903-1906 Diary, TS 31, MTP]. The New York Times, Dec.
December 8 Thursday – Mary C. Waters wrote to Sam, having read his Joan of Arc article in the Dec. Harper’s. She enclosed an article, no longer extant [MTP].
December 9 Friday – On or after this day at 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam replied to the Nov. 6 from A. Silk.
“Dear Sir: / I thank you for the library catalogue cutting for I have often wanted to know what that Diary is—and now find by the heading that it is philosophical or religious or both—and I am glad to know—“ [MTP]. Note: the “Diary” was “Extracts of Adam’s Diary.”
December 10 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Robert Underwood Johnson, thanking him for being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters on Dec. 2. Johnson was the Secretary of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, which founded the Academy in emulation of the French Academy, and formed to “foster, assist, and sustain excellence” in American literature, music, and art [MTP].
December 11 Sunday – William B. Throop wrote from Aurora, Ill. to Sam, asking where he might find the old story of a man who went to Washington to collect money due on a beef contract [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote “ ‘Roughing It,’ I think,” at the top.
December 12 Monday – Hal W. Greer, attorney in Beaumont, Texas, wrote to Sam, thanking him for “The $30,000 Bequest” in Harper’s Weekly, Christmas edition [MTP].
I.M. Horsfall wrote from London to Sam, having just read his article Joan of Arc in the Dec.Harper’s. He enclosed a sonnet on Joan by his blind daughter [MTP].
December 13 Tuesday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote “Due back Jan. 6th S.S. Lucania” on a postcard picturing Trafalgar Square, London [MTP].
R. Howard Krause and Mrs., in Kidderminster, England, sent a Christmas card to Sam [MTP].
December 15 Thursday – In Keokuk, Iowa Edward F. Brownell wrote to Isabel Lyon to clarify if the Dec. allowance for Tabitha “Puss” Quarles (Greening) was to be increased to $25 or if the $15 was to be added to her allowance [MTP].
December 16 Friday – Sam wrote to Andrew M. Clute, NY attorney, requesting that the canceled contracts for the sale of the Tarrytown house be returned to William Evarts Benjamin, Sam’s friend and attorney who had handled the sale. This letter is not extant but referred to in the following from Clute:
December 17 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote an autograph for Avery (not further identified): “To Avery—with kind remembrances of / Mark Twain / Dec. 1904” [MTP: Smith, Perline & Co. catalogs, Apr. 7, 1995, Item 782].
Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote to Sam [MTP]. UCCL 39141 letter is not currently available.
George W. Reeves wrote to Sam. “The copies of contract enclosed I will ask you not to sign until Mr. Benjamin has approved of them…If satisfactory, I will call with duplicates with Mr. Gardiner’s signature” [MTP].
December 19 Monday – Eleanor L. Nicholas wrote a “begging letter” from Montpelier, Vt. To Sam, who wrote on the envelope: “Curiosity” [MTP].
December 21 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Edmund Clarence Stedman, now in Brownsville, N.Y.
“Mr. Clemens wishes me to write for him to thank you for your invitation to lunch with you and the members of the Academy of Arts and Letters on January seventh, but to say that he must decline, for he is not accepting any invitations this year” [MTP].
December 23 Friday – Attorney John Larkin wrote to Sam, clearing up matters of the transfer tax on the Tarrytown property on Livy’s estate. He had had “considerable correspondence with Mr. Jervis Langdon” on the matter and prepared “additional affidavits which I believe will satisfy the transfer tax appraiser” but Sam would have to swear to an affidavit before a notary and return the document to Larkin [MTP].
December 25 Sunday – The New York Times ran a feature article on p. SM1, “Mark Twain— His Autobiography; Rescued from Oblivion After a Third of a Century,” headed by several engravings and photos. See Insert of sketch, captioned: “The latest portrait study of Mark Twain from photograph by Marceau.” The sketch also noted by J.A. Williams.
December 27 Tuesday – William E. Benjamin wrote to Sam, enclosing the Hoyt bill for the balance of commission on the sale of the Tarrytown house amounting to $800. In case the sale fell through all would be returned [MTP].
Nathan Haskell Dole wrote from Jamaica Plains, NY to invite Sam to the Boston Authors’ Club 12 night dinner on either Jan. 6 or 7 [MTP].