March 6 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Grover Cleveland.
Grover Cleveland, Esq.
Ex-President.
Honored Sir:
21 Fifth Ave - Day By Day
March 6 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Letter from Isabel F. Hapgood.
March 6 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning we had been gaily photographing the King and Irene, in and out of the donkey cart, and they went to the billiard room to be photographed there by a German whose name is uncatchable. I followed by and by to tell the King that the “battery” was waiting to move and looking through the window into the billiard room as I passed along the porch, I saw the King, pale as death, leaning over the table, and the young German rubbing the back of his head. “Do you feel better now?” I heard him say.
March 7 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Beatrice M. Benjamin.
Thank you for remembering to send me the questions. At first glance they look formidable, for young girls (& their elders); but upon examination one finds them to be simple, direct, distinctly outlined, & not formidable—in a word, well devised, a difficult job competently performed. A definite question is a suggestive & stimulating text to talk to, a vague & indefinite one is an invitation to you to make snowballs out of fog—an industry which has its embarrassments.
March 7 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Robert K. Mackey, who was seeking autographs for his son’s set of Mark Twain books. Lyon wrote that if Mackey would leave the first volume Mr. Clemens would autograph it for him [MTP].
Sam also wrote to John F. Tremain of the Chemung County Society who had written on Dec. 9 conferring upon Mark Twain honorary membership in their society and inviting him to dine with them on Mar. 29. Sam thanked him for both but declined to attend due to other engagements [MTP].
Sam also wrote to John F. Tremain of the Chemung County Society who had written on Dec. 9 conferring upon Mark Twain honorary membership in their society and inviting him to dine with them on Mar. 29. Sam thanked him for both but declined to attend due to other engagements [MTP].
March 7 Thursday – Sam did not attend the memorial meeting for the late Ernest Howard Crosby, one of the founders of the Social Reform Club, but sent a letter (not extant), as did a few other luminaries. Sam was listed in the Feb. 23 NY Times article as being among those in charge of the meeting in Cooper Union [NY Times, Mar. 8, p.2 “Honor Crosby’s Memory”].
Franklin and Harriet Whitmore came for a three-day stay with Sam [Mar. 12 to Clara; Hill 165; IVL TS 32].
March 7 Saturday – The Royal Gazette of Hamilton, Bermuda noted the regular appearance of Sam and H.H. Rogers on Front Street. Quoted and summarized by D. Hoffman:
March 8 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Mr. Coburn called and brought some very wonderful photographs. George Meredith, Andrew Lang, Mrs. Ward, Edmund Gosse and many others. He brought some landscapes too, and when I showed one of some mighty trees to Mr. Clemens, at first he couldn’t make out the subject and when I told him what it was he said, “I thought it was the dinosaurus coming down town.”
March 8 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam added to his Mar. 4 to Gertrude Natkin. He would finish the letter on Mar. 9
Marjorie, I’ve got the words! The words That rhyme. The rest is easy, because No. 3 doesn’t have to rhyme with anything. Observe:
Thursday afternoon.
===
TO THAT BONNY CHILD, MARJORIE.
Marjorie, Marjorie, listen to me—
Listen, you winsome witch:
Whomever you bless with your innocent love,
That person is passing rich.
===
Marjorie, I’ve got the words! The words That rhyme. The rest is easy, because No. 3 doesn’t have to rhyme with anything. Observe:
Thursday afternoon.
===
TO THAT BONNY CHILD, MARJORIE.
Marjorie, Marjorie, listen to me—
Listen, you winsome witch:
Whomever you bless with your innocent love,
That person is passing rich.
===
March 8 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. & Mrs. Gilder were here for luncheon today, & the chat was pleasant. The talk after luncheon fell on the Shelly Keats Memorial & the part Mr. Clemens took in it & Mrs. Whitmore asked him to read Rabbi Ben Ezra to us—which he did.
March 8 Sunday – The New York Times, page 12, ran “Knickerbocker Will Open On March 26,” which announced the reopening of Sam’s bank where he had over $51,000 in deposits. The Knickerbocker Trust Co. bank had suffered a run by frantic depositors and was forced to close shortly after noon on Oct. 2, 1907. It’s likely that Sam received the good news by this day or the next.
(signed) Finlayson:
H.W. Finlayson wrote from Grassy Bay, Bermuda to Sam (John Gay, Capt. Of Cressy; also
March 8-11 Sunday – During this period Sam replied to Ernest Carson Hunt (incoming not extant) that he had never written a book entitled, “How to be a gentleman” [MTP].
March 9 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Mr. Gilder and Dorothea dined here. Dorothea looked very sweet in a little marquise bodice, brilliantly charmingly flowered. She left early to go to a concert but Mr. Gilder stayed on and was very interesting in his talk about Roosevelt as a reader, and as a man with a phenominal [sic] memory. Only as a politician is he not admirable [MTP: TS 43].
Philip Cabot wrote for Henry Copley Greene to Miss Lyon, acknowledging the signed leases from Clemens, and returning one signed copy for Sam’s files [MTP].
March 9 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam added to his Mar. 4 and Mar. 8 to Gertrude Natkin, who had telephoned him, perhaps before he completed the letter [Natkin Mar. 10]. Friday.
I knew I could do it, dear. By going without rest or food for a day & a night I have compressed the proper work of months into a single cataclysmal explosion. And so as you see, it is finished:
Rich, though he have not a grain of gold
Save that which is in his mouth,
Rich, though his silver be all on his head
And crusts for his craw be all his bread
I knew I could do it, dear. By going without rest or food for a day & a night I have compressed the proper work of months into a single cataclysmal explosion. And so as you see, it is finished:
Rich, though he have not a grain of gold
Save that which is in his mouth,
Rich, though his silver be all on his head
And crusts for his craw be all his bread
March 9 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Yesterday came a letter from AB containing a beautiful tribute to the King. I’ll keep it right here. The King was sweetly moved by it. He lies in bed a lot these days when he isn’t flitting around the billiard table. He played all the afternoon, or much of it after Mr. Stanchfield who had been lunching here left us. This morning I sat in the King’s dressing room while he shaved, & went over the batch of mail there.
March 9 Monday – Howells & Stokes wrote to Sam, enclosing a bill for $2,952.69 for William Webb Sunderland, the 7th payment in his contract [MTP].
March – May? – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Leonard Henslowe. “I am shut up with illness; but even if I were well I would not be interviewed by any but an enemy, & I am sure I do not take you for that” [MTP]. Note: Henslowe’s incoming not extant.
May 1 Monday – Katy Leary and Jean Clemens left for Dublin, N.H. to get the Greene house ready for Sam. Isabel Lyon would leave on May 5 to join the pair. The nearest railway station was an hour’s drive; from that point it was three hours to Boston or six hours to New York [Lystra 46].
May 1 Tuesday – Robert Reid wrote on this day or May 2 to Sam.
May 1 Wednesday – At 4 a.m. the Kanawha got underway back to New York through the clearing fog [Baltimore Sun May 10, “Mark Twain in Clover” p.14]. Note: because the yacht could not be seen leaving from shore, it was thought for a day or more that it was lost at sea.
May 1 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Apr. 30 to Frances Nunnally.
The way you are arranging things, you little rascal, what sort of a glimpse of you am I going to get? Before the 6th of June we shall be living in the house I am building in the country. However, it isn’t far away—only an hour & a half. When you arrive here I will come to town & see you—& then I hope you & your mother can run out to the villa with me & give me a visit.
May 10 Wednesday – The New York Times, May 11, p. 1 ran a squib that Clara Clemens was operated on in the afternoon by Dr. Hartley (likely Dr. Frank Hartley 1856-1913).
At 8 p.m. at 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
dear, it’s over, & Clara is doing well. She had a famous surgeon—D . Hartley. It was a bad appendix—long & slim & with crooks in it; it was getting ready to be a dangerous case.
Good-night dear Sue—I am very tired, on account of the solicitude. / Holy Saml [MTP].
May 10 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to Gertrude Natkin’s May 5-8:
Hail & Aùfwiedersehen, Marjorie dear! & thank you for the blots—which I duplicate. Indeed it has been a troublesome captivity, but the end is near by, now, for if the weather permits, I am to leave my room day after to-morrow (or at furthest Monday) & break for the woods & freedom —that is to say, Dublin, N.H.
Hail & Aùfwiedersehen, Marjorie dear! & thank you for the blots—which I duplicate. Indeed it has been a troublesome captivity, but the end is near by, now, for if the weather permits, I am to leave my room day after to-morrow (or at furthest Monday) & break for the woods & freedom —that is to say, Dublin, N.H.
May 10 Friday – Annapolis: On the morning of May 10 Sam toured the Naval Academy, something he’d looked forward to. He was joined by three young ladies: Miss Carrie Warfield, and Miss Margaret Warfield, the Governor’s daughter, and niece, respectively; and Mary Foxley Tilghman, daughter of the Secretary of State. The group heard the Naval Academy Band concert and afterward visited the commanding officer. The Superintendent, Admiral James H.
May 10 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The Waylands and the Frohmans were here for dinner again, and a young journalist” [MTP: IVL TS 53].
Frances Nunnally wrote to Sam.
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