21 Fifth Ave - Day By Day

March 23 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Yesterday the King, Mr. Rogers and I drove over to call on Sir Bronlow Grey’s elderly daughters who have never been off these islands. He was attorney general here and in those old days he would not let them leave, and now they are afraid to venture, I believe.

March 23 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

March 23 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to Kate W. Barrett (incoming not extant):

March 23 Saturday – Fatout lists Sam giving a Pilgrim’s dinner speech at the Ambassador James Bryce Dinner, Waldorf-Astoria, N.Y.C. [MT Speaking 676]. Particulars below:

The New York Sun, Mar. 24, p.4, “Bryce Guest of Pilgrims” reported the event but does not mention any speech by Mark Twain. In part (with all mentions of Mark Twain):  

BRYCE GUEST OF PILGRIMS.

GREETINGS AT DINNER TO THE

BRITISH AMBASSADOR.

——— ———

March 24 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

March 24 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Gertrude Natkin at 138 W. 98 St., N.Y.C.

March 24 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: A lazy recuperative day, I think. I have never been so exhausted as just now. I was telling the King this morning how mother who spends her winters near here changed her boarding house by herself and got into a house of questionable character and he told me of how when Mr. And Mrs. Twichell were in London many years ago, they spent a week in a house of prostitution and would probably be there yet, if some friend hadn’t taken them out [MTP TS 44].

March 24 Tuesday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.

Francesca dear, this note will leave here 4 days hence by a slow steamer, & reach you 8 days from now—April 1. We sail April 11th & reach New York April 13 —Tuesday. Miss Lyon & my daughter will then go to Redding, Conn., where we are building a house, & return at the week- end—Saturday, April 18.

March 25 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Duneka says of the Satan letter ‘That it is great[’]. Boy come today with proof. / Count Lewenhaupt began treatment today for Mr. Clemens—$2.00 a treatment. / Mr. Clemens dined with Mr & Mrs. Rogers” [MTP TS 9]

March 25 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Miss Marjorie Bowen (pseud.)

Indeed I shall be more pleased than you can think, to have “The Master of Stair” dedicated to me. It is lovely of you to conceive of this fine compliment for me, & I highly value the impulse that moved you to it. You are a wonderful girl, & I hope there is a long life before you to keep on proving it in. / With the very best wishes …. [MTP]. Note: see Nov. 20, 1906.

March 25 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: Mr. and Mrs. Freeman took me for tea at the Women’s Exchange. We sat up on the latticed balcony and watched the darkeys in afternoon toilets, and the other folks go by and then we drove out to Spanish Point and around by the North Shore and to visit some charming rentable vacant houses, and that started me to telling the Freemans about Redding and Lyonesse and they want to go there too.

March 26 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Dear Col. Higginson,—I early learned that you would be my neighbor in the Summer & I rejoiced, recognizing in you & your family a large asset. I hope for frequent intercourse between the two households. I shall have my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the rest-cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk Conn. & we shall not see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the middle of October.

March 26 – early April – In a supplement to a June, 1913 American Post review, the tale is told of Sam attending a performance of Benjamin Chapin playing Lincoln on stage. NY Times (Mar. 25, p. X1) gives the first week’s performance began on Mar. 26. The article and a letter (uncollected) Sam sent to Chapin’s secretary.

MARK TWAIN AND PARTY

ATTEND “LINCOLN”

By One of the Party

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 26 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: A long and enthusiastic letter from AB, who finds Carson City very interesting and so full of matter than he had to send for Mrs. P and Joy [his youngest dau.] to see it with him. C.C. came home late last night. She is a made over creature with happiness and success and music running rampantly through her veins. What a creature she is, and how beautiful [MTP TS 44].

March 26 Thursday – Dr. Frederick Peterson wrote to Isabel Lyon recommending that Jean Clemens, her two nurses, and young friend Marguerite Schmidt (or Schmitt), who shared a cottage in Greenwich, Conn., might prefer Gloucester, Mass. On Apr. 18, Lyon and one of the nurses, Edith Cowles, would go to Gloucester and select a cottage for the girls [Hill 197; MTP]. Note: IVL wrote: “Heartily approve of Gloucester”

March 27 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

My head is full of obstetrical hooks and slants and jabs for today I began to study shorthand. I don’t see how anyone can ever put soul into that sort of writing. It would seem wrong to put down Mr. Clemens’s thoughts like that—but it’s for Mr. Clemens’s thoughts that I’m trying to learn it. It is very lonely without Saint Mother, but who am I that I should be lonely in the presence of a loveliness like Mr. Clemens’s [MTP: TS 47].

March 27 Wednesday – Sam attended a luncheon at the St. Regis Hotel given by Count Arthur de Jcherep-Spiridovitch (1851-1926), who eulogized the Russian Czar. Sam paid some compliments in introducing the Count. The New York Times, Mar. 28, p.9 reported the event. Evidently, Mark Twain’s remarks were not recorded.

March 27 Friday – The Bermuda Royal Gazette of Mar. 31 reported Sam’s reading of Kipling’s poems at Shoreby on Mar. 27 for the guests of Mrs. Mary Allen Peck:  “He read these in a tone and with a depth of feeling that gave to the verses a value seldom recognized” [D. Hoffman 108]. Note: Gribben offers more detail:

March 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Seymour Eaton.

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 28 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

March 28 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Bermuda: Sometimes it seems to me as if each person were surrounded by a wonderful color, and that is a sacrilege to try to penetrate it. There be some whose color could never be merged into that of another person, but in the main there is only one person in all the world whose color would match with its mate, to make a perfect harmony. For we can’t be many things to many people.