March 26, 1906 Monday
March 26 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to John Brown, Jr. (“Jock”).

Dear Mr. Jock: — / With this I am returning the typed letters which you sent. They pleasantly but pathetically bring back the scenes and associations of thirty-three years ago, when Mrs. Clemens and our small Susy and I were comrades of your father in Edinburgh daily, during six weeks, without a break.
March 27, 1906 Tuesday
March 27 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 28, 1906 Wednesday

March 28 Wednesday – In the a.m. Charlotte Teller Johnson returned to 21 Fifth Ave. and read her play Joan d’Arc to Clemens. It was the beginning of almost daily visits between the two and much correspondence. See Mar. 27 entry.

March 29, 1906 Thursday

March 29 Thursday – At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Sam told a story at a benefit for the blind. The New York Times, Mar. 30:

TWAIN AND CHOATE TALK AT MEETING FOR BLIND
———
Humorist Sightless Once—in a Vast German Inn.

HIT AT GHOST, BROKE MIRROR

Mr. Choate Urges Liberal Contributions, Mr. Gilder Writes a Poem and Helen Keller a Letter.

March 30, 1906 Friday
March 30 Friday – Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford to Sam:

I am ordered on duty—as reader of a Scripture lesson only—at the service named on the enclosed card [not extant], which will be in commemoration of the close of the Civil War.
March 31, 1906 Saturday

March 31 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to George O’Connor.

April 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 1, 1906 Sunday

April 1 Sunday – Although not cited by Fatout or others, on Apr. 4, Charles F. Powlison for the YMCA wrote from NYC to thank Sam for addressing their Sunday afternoon meeting.

April 2, 1906 Monday

April 2 Monday – The New York Times, Apr. 3, p. 9, “Three New Plays at Vassar Benefit,” reported that “Mark Twain was the centre Times of one admiring group in a lower stage box…” at the Hudson Theatre, N.Y.C. The plays: The Mallet’s Masterpiece; The Land of the Free; The Watteau Shepherdess. Fatout offers more detail and some speculation about this event:   That he made a speech is not on record, but he probably said something.

April 3, 1906 Tuesday
April 3 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Gertrude Natkin at 138 W. 98 St., N.Y.

M . Clemens has asked me to send you these tickets for a box for the evening of the 19 , and to say that he would write you himself, but that these are very very busy days, & when he is not working he is too tired to do anything but rest up for the busy day that comes to-morrow.
April 4, 1906 Wednesday

April 4 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Charles J. Langdon in Elmira.

“Was there a Mrs. Lee among the Quaker City’s passengers? I do not recal the name” [MTP]. Note: Mrs. S.G. Lee of Brooklyn was on the excursion [MTL 2: 387].

April 5, 1906 Thursday

April 5 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Alice Pearmain (Mrs. Sumner B. Pearmain).

April 6, 1906 Friday

April 6 Friday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Mary E. Bell: “When Mr. C. came home from the theatre he wrote this sentence hoping it might be made useful among her other testimonials Re—Mrs. Bell” [MTP]. Note: evidently Bell had performed on stage.

Sam also replied to John Greenall in Leeds, England who had written Mar. 27: 

April 7, 1906 Saturday

April 7 Saturday – Clara Clemens wrote to her father, the letter not extant but was quoted by Sam in his Apr. 10 letter to William Dean Howells and also in his reply to Clara [MTP]. See entries.

Sam was elected as the “annual guest” of Smith College’s New York Alumnae at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor. The New York Times, Apr. 8, p. 7, reported:

TWAIN AND SIR PURDON LAUD SMITH GRADUATES

Humorist Elected Annual Guest of the College Club Here.
——— ——— ———
GALA DAY AT HOTEL ASTOR

April 8, 1906 Sunday

April 8 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to a not-extant letter from daughter Clara, now convalescing at the Hotel Brighton in Atlantic City, N.J.  

April 9, 1906 Monday
April 9 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

When you come by for me at 5 this afternoon won’t you please bring me

1—$500-bank note;
4—100-
10—10- 

& please ask Miss Harrison to draw this $1000 from my balance at the Guaranty Trust. / Yours ever

Miss Lyon doesn’t know about this. SL. Clemens [MTHHR 604-5].
April 10, 1906 Tuesday

April 10 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a reply on Edward Everett Hale’s Apr 8. “I had already dismissed the copyright matter from my mind, recognizing that it was too late to accomplish anything with it this year. Therefore I squash my answer to your letter into a simple sentence, to wit:—I haven’t any wish to follow up the copyright matter this year” [MTP].

Sam also replied to the Apr. 8 praise of his A.D. from William Dean Howells:

April 11, 1906 Wednesday
April 11 Wednesday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from the Hotel de France & Choiseul, Paris:

Dear Mark: / I’ve a bit of news which I am sure will interest you, since it is the only happy thing that has befallen this stricken family during the past three years—the engagement of Talbot to a sweet young New England girl, a Miss Eleanor Little. ….
April 12, 1906 Thursday
April 12 Thursday – In the evening Sam and William Dean Howells visited Maxim Gorky. New York newspapers followed Gorky’s every move, including a p. 2 article from the Apr. 13 Times, “MAXIM GORKY VISITS THE TOMB OF GRANT,” which included the following passage on Mark Twain and W.D. Howells:  

Mark Twain and W. D. Howells called upon Gorky at his apartments in the Hotel Belleclaire last evening. They remained with him for about half an hour discussing literature, and invited him to attend a literary dinner about a fortnight from now. Gorky accepted the invitation.
April 12-15, 1906 Sunday
April 12-15 Sunday – Sometime during this period Sam left a calling card at Charlotte Teller Johnson’s house: “I have come to ask after your cold, & to see if you are up & about: in which case can you see me in your workroom instead of venturing out into the air to come to my house? I hope you are well enough to take that risk, but naturally I am not in a position to guess intelligently. / SLC” [MTP].
April 13, 1906 Friday
April 13 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a note of introduction for Maxim Gorky to Josiah Flint Willard at 119 Waverly Place, N.Y.C., replying to Willard’s Apr. 12:

“Dear Maxim Gorky: / M . Willard, the bearer of this, begs me to give him a line of introduction to you & I comply with his request in the conviction that you will find him interesting, since, like yourself, he has seen the seamy side of life & has had adventures” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson.
April 14, 1906 Saturday

April 14 Saturday – Four autographed notes by Clemens on a four-page letter by an unspecified reporter of the NY Times, requesting his opinion on Maxim Gorky’s trip to America to raise funds in the cause of Russian emancipation. Sam refused to be interviewed but answered written questions with written answers, with the priviso that they would be printed verbatim, if at all.  Two of the notes follow:

April 15, 1906 Sunday

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 16, 1906 Monday

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 17, 1906 Tuesday
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.”
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