April 14 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer.
Dear Margaret, we arrived from Bermuda yesterday afternoon, & in the accumulation of letters I find yours of a fortnight ago. I’ve brought the little angel-fish pin—badge of my Aquarium— & will keep it for you till you come, which I hope will be as soon as Miss Tewksbury can escort you. Come VERY soon!
April 15 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Mother and I saw Lilian Griffin for a moment in at Cecchina’s at 6:30. Walter has lost his position as instructor at the Art School in Hartford. Mother and I couldn’t get seats at Cecchina’s so we went around to the “Griffoni” and had such a bad dinner. Then we went up to Proctor’s show house to see Henry Lee impersonate Mark Twain. Very bad it was [MTP: TS 51]. See insert for Henry Lee
April 15 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied with an aphorism to Carolyn Wells: “It is easier for a needle to go through a camel’s eye than for a rich woman to sprain her ancle & keep it out of the papers. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / April 15, 1906 / With greetings & good wishes to Carolyn Wells” [MTP].
The New York Times ran a front-page scandal story involving Maxim Gorky; Mark Twain’s remarks on helping Russia were included:
GORKY AND ACTRESS ASKED TO QUIT HOTELS
She Is Not Mme. Gorky, Though He Calls Her So.
April 15 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Twichells go” [MTP TS 53].
Frederick D. Evans wrote from Fort McDowell, Calif. to Sam being bothered by a statement Sam made in “Concerning the Jews”some four years before, he thought in Harper’s Magazine. “That you had no prejudice against any nationality—save one. / What is that one?” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Quote the paragraph / no recollection / explain it if he can”
April 15 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Apr. 14 of Margaret Blackmer.
I have your letter of yesterday, & you are a very dear Margaret, & have given me great pleasure. Now as I cipher it you are to go away with your papa Thursday the 16th (to-morrow) & will return on or “about” the 23d.
April 16 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Miss Mary Foote lunched here” [MTP: TS 51]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Sent word to Postman in Dublin N.H. to keep mail for Mr.Clemens. / Mr. Clemens read 40 pages of the Admiral Story MS. this evening—”[MTP TS 14].
April 16 Monday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Nikolai V. Chaikovsky. “Mr. C asks me to write for him and say that he is not going to take any public notice of the man Spiridovitch. He is not too troubled about the matter” [MTP]. Note: Alexander Spiridovitch (1873-1952), Russian police general. In 1906 Spiridovitch was assigned to a detail guarding the residences of Czar Nicholas II.
April 16 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam gave instructions to Lyon for reply to Mark G. McElhinney’s Apr. 3. “Thank him for his letter & say that by & by when his philosophy is printed he will send him a confidential copy” [MTP].
Sam also replied by writing on Dr. Edward Anthondy Spitzka’s Apr. 10. “Well, I read the other one, & got some thing out of it for the C. S. book. Glad to have it. Life’s getting a little dull lately, & nothing excites me like the encephalic” [MTP].
April 16 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J. Thursday night.
Friday—Saturday—Sunday—Monday—then you are here! Monday afternoon. About half-past 2, I suppose. Well, I shall be on the lookout, & powerful glad to see you. Shan’t we have good times? I do most confidently guess so.
In Bermuda I bought a trinket for your Christmas. But I can’t keep it that long, I’ll give it to you now.
April 17 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Col. Harvey dined here. To look at Col. Harvey you’d never think that he was a man with a literary appreciation or that he could talk—but he can and he gave us a very nice dinner party. Then Jean and I left Mr. Clemens and him while we came up to our rooms [MTP: TS 51].
Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: Treatment. Paid. [Swedish Count C. Lewenhaupt gave Sam osteopathic treatments.]
Mr. Clemens went to the Italian Consul to sign a paper enabling Ingegnere Zannoni to act as his representative in the Villa di Quarto case.
April 17 Tuesday – Sam wrote to an unidentified person about Benjamin Chapin, who performed on stage as Abraham Lincoln. This letter appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Apr. 22, 1906 in “Lincoln Lives in Ohio Actor.”
April 17 Wednesday – Sam’s A.D. of one year later noted the anniversary: “a fortunate day, a golden day, and my heart has never been empty of grandchildren since.” Cooley writes:
April 17 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Richard C. Carr in Bogotville, Chicoutine County, P.Q., Canada.
April 18 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Santissima [Clara] is allowed to see her letters— I’ve sent them up to her” [MTP: TS 51]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Clemens lunched with Col. Harvey, and Mr. Howells, and others too. (4 ladies) / Miss Pears came up from Washington to dine with Mr. Clemens” [MTP TS 14].
April 18 Wednesday – The New York Times, Apr. 19, p. 14, “Sutton Beats Slosson by Superior Billiards,” again mentioned Mark Twain’s evening at the international billiards tourney at Madison Square Garden:
April 18 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied on Frank T. Searight’s Apr. 12 letter: “never make another land voyage that can be avoided either honorably or otherwise” [MTP].
At 8:15 p.m. Clara Clemens gave a performance in Fredonia, N.Y. The Fredonia Censor advertised her upcoming concert and on Apr. 24 reviewed it:
April 18 Saturday – Mark Twain, H.H. Rogers and State Senator Patrick H. McCarren were guests of honor at the Humorists and Cartoonists Beefsteak Dinner at Reisenwebers in NYC. His speech and the event was covered by the NY Times, Apr. 19, p.16.
Photo insert: Twain and Rogers are standing in the middle next to the windows.
April 19 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Dinner with Mr. & Mrs. Loomis / Col Harvey took the Palmistry Article—[MTP TS 14]. Note: see Twain’s “Palm Readings” (1905) and the A.D. of Jan. 29, 1907. Playboy Magazine, Dec. 2010 issue gives a peek at Vol. 2 of Autobiography of Mark Twain, to be released in 2012 by the MTP. In this excerpt Twain responds to fortune tellers who were asked to read his handprints without knowing his identity.
William Dean Howells in NYC wrote a sentence to Sam: “At least 3 of us will come to dinner Sunday at 7. (or 7.30?)” [MTHL 2: 798].
April 19 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We’re just starting for Hartford. It is snowing and the King who is lathering his face for a shave suggests that I get Mrs. Whitmore on the telephone and tell her that he “may be a little late in arriving for he has mislaid one of his snowshoes.” And then such a chuckle of delight he gives as he swabs his face and I go spinning up to the telephone. I wouldn’t dampen one joke of the King’s for worlds, except where Mrs. Rogers is concerned, for she can’t be joked with over a telephone. Dinner tonight at Mrs.
April 19 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Sturgis.
Easter Morning
Yes indeed, dear Miss Dorothy, I want the pictures you took; & I am hoping that Mr. Russell will not forget to send copies of those which he took of you & me, for I want good ones to frame & hand in the billiard room of the house I am building in the country—the said room’s name being “The Aquarium,” because it is to be the Aquarium’s official headquarters.
April – Review of Reviews (London) published an anonymous article, “If Emperors Were All Stripped Naked” p. 375. Tenney: “Summary of ‘The Czar’s Soliloquy,’ which appeared in North American Review in March [40]. Connecticut Magazine published “Mark Twain’s Autobiography, 1872” [Tenney 40]. Note: The actual title was “Mark Twain—His Autobiography” which ran in the magazine for April-May-June, 1905. It is a reprinting of “Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography” (1871), later in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906).
April – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed a copy of TS to Norman D. Bassett with an aphorism: “Few things are harder to bear than the annoyance of a good example. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Apl./06 / Norman D. Bassett” [MTP].
Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937) inscribed his book Pigs Is Pigs (1906) to Sam dated April 1906 in Flushing New York [Gribben 119].
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 – Gessford’s photograph of Mark Twain ran in Forum, facing p. 441. “No significant commentary” [Tenney, ALR Third Annual Supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1979) 192].