March 19 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
21 Fifth Ave - Day By Day
March 19 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to W.T. Hall.
I thank you very much for the clipping from the Atlantic [sic Atlanta] Evening News. I have waited these many years for you to hear me lecture, but now it is too late: I am taking my farewell of the platform three weeks hence. The hostiles say “But you are forgetting the gallows—” a joke which I am too proud & arrogant to notice [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Jean, 8:20 10:30
March 19 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We sailed away again this morning. We had a darling time when leaving time came, for every one way paying court to the King, and photographing him. We flew over to Trinningham’s [D. Hoffman shows this as Trimingham’s] and bought him a nice panama hat, one like Binny’s, and Binny was struggling with an Irish flag to hoist to the top of his hired boat in Paddy’s honor and altogether it was charming. The afternoon before there had been some good talk with Mr.
March 19 Thursday – Irene Gerken wrote her typical no-periods note to Sam. “I received your letter this evening and was very glad to hear from you you say you are lonesome Why I should think Miss Allen would fill my place Allthough I am far away I hear all the news. By the score you sent me of the cards I see Mr Rodgers has lost every game I am very glad that you had a good time at the War ship and if I had knowen you were there I might of seen you.” She asked after Maud and Reginald [MTP].
March – Sam’s essay, “The Czar’s Soliloquy” first ran in the Mar. issue of North American Review. It was not collected in any publication during his lifetime [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].
March – Sam inscribed a copy of TS with an aphorism: “Let us save the to-morrows for work, Truly Yours Mark Twain, Mch/06” [MTP: City Book Auction catalogs 26 May 1945, Item 119].
Charles E. Dana wrote for the Contemporary Club in Phila. to invite Sam to their 20 anniversary dinner. They had chosen “American Humor” as the subject. Miss Agnes Repplier, (1855-1950) Philadelphia essayist known for her scholarship and humor, would give an address on the subject [MTP].
Charles E. Dana wrote for the Contemporary Club in Phila. to invite Sam to their 20 anniversary dinner. They had chosen “American Humor” as the subject. Miss Agnes Repplier, (1855-1950) Philadelphia essayist known for her scholarship and humor, would give an address on the subject [MTP].
March – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Osip I. Feldman, hypnotist. “This bust is better than the original. At least it seems so to me; & it also seemed so at the time that the gifted artist made it 9 years ago in Vienna. I am glad to see it again [MTP: Levidova, Mark Twain: A Bibliographic Catalog of Russian Translations, etc.1974 p.133]. Note: At least two busts of Twain were made in Vienna: by Theresa Ries in Dec. 1897 and by Ernest Hegenbarth in Jan. 1898.
March – Burr McIntosh Monthly (NY) ran a portrait of Twain and daughter Clara, p. 57-8,. Tenney: “Accompanying text states that MT had approximately $50,000 on deposit at the Knickerbocker Trust Company in New York at the time of the crash; he opposed establishing a permanent receivership on the grounds that it would be as expensive to maintain as a harem: ‘Anybody who has had experience in this line will endorse my statement’” [45].
March 2 Thursday – Jean Clemens and Katy Leary were in Dublin, N.H. where they previewed Henry Copley Greene’s house, approving it for the summer rental. Jean stayed one night with Mr. & Mrs. Abbott Thayer, likely this evening or the next, as Isabel Lyon met Jean on Mar. 4 in Hartford. See her journal entries for Mar. 2, 3 & 4.
March 2 Friday – Clara Clemens returned to Atlantic City; she would make another NY trip on Mar 13 to audition [Hill 122].
At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Gertrude Natkin in N.Y.C., whom he now referred to as “Marjorie.”
Marjorie dear, Mr. [Charles F.] Powlison has sent tickets—which is very well; it simplifies things.
The house is made up of men, you see. Certainly this is a new kind of matinèe.
At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Gertrude Natkin in N.Y.C., whom he now referred to as “Marjorie.”
Marjorie dear, Mr. [Charles F.] Powlison has sent tickets—which is very well; it simplifies things.
The house is made up of men, you see. Certainly this is a new kind of matinèe.
March 2 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote congratulations to Murat and Mary Banks Halstead on their 50 wedding anniversary. The letter is not extant but was reported by the New York Times, Mar. 3, p. 7 “Halstead’s Golden Wedding.”
March 2 Monday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam added a PS to his Feb. 29 letter to daughter Clara: “P.S. Monday Eve. Your letter has arrived, with its gratifying news. The Oswego incident is worth a dozen word-compliments.”
Sam also replied to the Feb. 28 from Margaret Blackmer at The Misses Tewksbury’s School, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Dear Margaret:
March 20 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Jean and I went up to the little Carnegie Theatre to see Mary Lawton in a rehearsal of Magda. It was harrowing enough, for the director’s criticism of the young actors was scathing and heart searching in sarcasms. It’s the only way though to bring them into perfection, and when we came home after 4½ hours of it we were too exhausted to eat our dinner, too exhausted to hear intelligently Mr. Clemens reading of the Bagheera Story.
March 20 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka of Harper & Brothers about the illustrations for Eve’s Diary (1906).
We all think Mr. Ralph’s pictures delightful—full of grace, charm, variety of invention, humor, pathos, poetry—they are prodigal in merits. It’s a bonny Eve, a sweet & innocent & winning little lassie, & she is as natural & at home in the tale as if she had just climbed out of it. Now do you think draperies are indispensable to picture women? /Truly yours / SL. C.
We all think Mr. Ralph’s pictures delightful—full of grace, charm, variety of invention, humor, pathos, poetry—they are prodigal in merits. It’s a bonny Eve, a sweet & innocent & winning little lassie, & she is as natural & at home in the tale as if she had just climbed out of it. Now do you think draperies are indispensable to picture women? /Truly yours / SL. C.
March 20 Wednesday – Sam was on the Bermudian en route to N.Y.C. Isabel Lyon’s journal: “A beautiful rough day” [MTP TS 41].
Arthur E. Bullard for Friends of Russian Freedom wrote to advise Sam they were organizing on a national basis and requested he be on their executive committee [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “I am in full sympathy with the movement & am willing to have my name used, but as I am too full of duties I cannot furnish any active service”
March 20 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We went to the Hastings for tea today at four o’clock, It was assembled out on the beautiful point, and though there were a lot of people there, our own clan was the dearest. The others gave us no thrills. The King and I drove over with Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, the Rajah on the box, (Betsy is naughty—she says Mrs. Rogers could be called a Eunuch because she is the Rajah’s manager.) and after the tea and the sandwiches we drove around to the North Shore, and got out to look down a cliff side into the water 100 feet below.
March 21 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Tonight Mr. Clemens read a very interesting unpublishable sketch. Unpublishable because it is what an old darkey says of the universal brotherhood of man—and how it couldn’t ever be, not even in heaven—for there are only white angels there and in the old darkey’s vision the niggers were all sent around to the back door. It’s a wonderful little sketch but it wouldn’t do for the clergy. They couldn’t stand it. It’s too true.
March 21 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Jean to Lakewood.
C.C. & I went to see Otis Skinner in The Duel & a finer bit of unconscious sarcasm of stage traditions I’ve never seen. We were stunned into silence by Fay Davis’s inability to make one good or natural thing, but that inability was the saving of the play from hopeless mediocrity, & the placing of it was among the finest productions of the winter for old fashioned acting. It was glorious & we were convulsed, where everyone else was overcome by emotion—to tears [MTP TS 55].
Jean to Lakewood.
C.C. & I went to see Otis Skinner in The Duel & a finer bit of unconscious sarcasm of stage traditions I’ve never seen. We were stunned into silence by Fay Davis’s inability to make one good or natural thing, but that inability was the saving of the play from hopeless mediocrity, & the placing of it was among the finest productions of the winter for old fashioned acting. It was glorious & we were convulsed, where everyone else was overcome by emotion—to tears [MTP TS 55].
March 21 Thursday – The Bermudian docked in N.Y.C. Sam returned home to 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. and sent a telegram to Lilian W. Aldrich in Boston:
“I have just learned to-night with the deepest sorrow of your heavy bereavement & I tender the heartfelt sympathy of an old friend who always loved him, & who would comfort you if any words of his could do it” [MTP].
March 21 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Such a wonderful day we have had, for Mrs. Rogers organized a party to go to Somerset, 12 miles away and to lunch there. We set out at eleven; Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, Mr. and Mrs. [Zoheth] Freeman, the King, Mr. Weir, Mrs. Peck, Mrs. [Marion Schuyler] Allen, Mr. John Wayland, Elizabeth [Wallace] and I.
March 22 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
March 22 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, Isabel V. Lyon wrote notes for Sam to answer Elisabeth Cutting. “Mar 22—Think out a date for Reception. The Spanish girl Senorita Marcial will be here about Apr. 2. Would they like to invite Sen Marcial & her chaperon Miss Sanborn to this recep.” [Lyon:] “Mention this as M . Clemens would like to help her along in her work—in any way that comes along” [MTP].
Lyon also wrote the notes to reply to Moses Allen Starr’s Mar. 21 (the answer was sent at John Larkin’s suggestion by Isabel V. Lyon)
March 22 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote an introductory note for Frederick Upham Adams (representing Harper’s) to Dr. John S. Billings. The introduction was “upon library business” [MTP].
March 22 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Betsy, the King and I drove up to Prospect to hear the band play. We sat on a cab rug under the trees and watched that colony of red coated players with its graceful leader, and we watched the little children who were enraptured by the music, and who gamboled around through “the forest of legs” (Betsy) and tumbled over the dogs and were so very, very happy. They were great human beings in little, and showed openly the characteristics that their elders were concealing under stolid masks.
March 22-26 Monday – During this period Sam replied to Maude Clement Rice in Sawnee on Delaware, Penn.: “I am glad to have a copy of that letter, & shall also be very glad to sign the photograph—” [MTP]. Note: incoming not extant; possibly a relative of old “Unreliable,” Clement Rice?
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