May 30 Thursday – Sam replied to Harper’s of May 29: Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “If the London people will just ask C&W [Chatto & Windus] they will find that they can let Harpers know. They transferred” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Days and weeks are passing and I am not writing a word about the most wonderful creature in the world, but I’ll try to hark back. He is in love with Tuxedo.
May 31 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Robert Underwood Johnson. “M . Clemens asks me to say that he cannot serve an active part in the Academy, & so regrets that he is not able to send in any nominations. He believed that his Silence would be an answer” [MTP].
June – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean, who evidently was dissatisfied at Katonah, and also unhappy with Isabel V. Lyon.
June 1 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Will came out today and there was very great music in the afternoon. The piano is down in hall and from my 3rd story I slipped down a flight, I had on a long thin black silk gown that made a little swish, just enough for the King who stood in his underdrawers in the 2nd hall, to hear and make him look up at me with his eyes shining with delight. He had come home from Mary Rogers’s and had gone to bed tired.
June 2 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Santa left at 3:14 and I came back to build a fire in my study and to settle down and read Dr. Long’s reply to Roosevelt’s attack on his books of nature[.] I went to sleep in the chaise lounge and rested some weary things within me, and went down at 7 o’clock to a solitary dinner, for the King had lunched with the Rogers’s. To my delight the King came wandering into the room with the salad, and then he talked steadily until after 10.
June 3 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Chatto & Windus. “M . Clemens asks me to write for him & say that he must refer you to the London Harpers, and say to them that he has no objection himself to the cheaper edition of the three books you mention; but that as he is a sort of partner of the Harpers, he cannot give his consent without consulting them” [MTP].
Sam also wrote an invitation to H.H. Rogers, Jr. and Mary B. Rogers, also in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
June 4 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We dined with the Ronalds’s tonight. She was like a pretty marquise, and it was nice to fly along home in the electric jigger. The King was in behind a bank of green stuff and so I couldn’t see him at all, but he wore his white clothes, and was beautiful to look upon.
I came home very much exhausted and threw myself on the bed in my evening gown to read a letter from Mother…[MTP TS 64].
June 5 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight we dined at the Mortimers in a very beautiful house, 16 of us. I sat between Dr. Rushmore and Mr. Pell, and had a very good time. They have wonderful pewter there and great stone carved fireplaces. It was a very formal dinner, and so the King wore black.
Tomorrow we start for N.Y. [MTP TS 65]. Note: Edward C. Rushmore. The Tuxedo Club 1908 book lists five men named Pell; Herbert C. Pell as a founder of the Club.
June 6 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today we came into town to begin the preparations for England. It’s a good thing that Ashcroft can go with him, but it has been making me heart- sick I think. I drifted into a headache and staggered about the house, but went down to dinner. Mr. Wark was here, and Mr. Paine, and after dinner the King led the way at once to the billiard room. I sat with those 2 sweet children for awhile and they gave me a ring, a lapis lazuli, in a quaint setting.
June 7 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote a dedication to Steve Gillis: “To / Steve Gillis / with the unabated love / of his oldest friend— / Mark Twain / New York, June 7, 1907” [MTP].
June 8 Saturday – Clara Clemens’ 33rd birthday. She saw her father off for England [MTB 1381]
June 8-17 Monday – On board the S.S. Minneapolis en route to England, Sam wrote to Carlotta Welles (whom he dubbed “Charlie”) on a calling card:
“Charlie, dear, you don’t know what you are missing. There’s more than two thousand porpoises in sight, & eleven whales, & sixty icebergs, & both Dippers, & seven rainbows, & all the battleships of all the navies, & me. / SLC” [MTAq 40].
Sam’s A.D. of July wrote of the voyage and of Carlotta (Charlie):
June 9 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Ah, it was fortunate that Santa and Will [Charles E. Wark] and I went off for a holiday up to the Bronx and to drive at—I cannot remember where. I believe my little remaining reason would have gone for I was growing lonelier with every hour, if we had not had real and new diversion. I shall stay on here until Thurs. or Friday, for now that C.C. has put all the house-keeping into my hands I shall begin tomorrow with these upper rooms [MTP TS 66].
June 10 Monday – Peter Richards drew a sketch of Mark Twain sometime during the voyage. See insert, captioned: “Sketched from life by P. Richards.”
June 11 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning a man name o’ Johnson came in to talk to me about the King’s first editions. He was sent by Cartoonist Opper to AB, but not finding either he “bumped the bumps himself” and came along. He wants to make a bibliography of the King’s books. He sees money in it and wants to take me into a kind of partnership—“graft”—the King will say for I have written him a scrap of a note about it. I am so grateful for work, hard work, for now the loneliness is greater as Santa is ill with tonsillitis, really wretchedly ill.
June 12 Wednesday – H.H. Rogers replied from Vichy, France to Sam, likely to his May 29 from Tuxedo Park. He’d rec’d Sam’s letter and thought they would meet in London as he was also invited by Lancaster of Liverpool to the Pilgrim’s Luncheon. Rogers family’s plans were to go to Paris on June 19 and to London on June 23, then on to Liverpool on June 27 and sail from Queenstown the next day. He announced if Sam wished to return with them they’d be delighted: “The only essentials this time will be drunkenness, profanity and sodomy” [MTP].
June 13 Thursday – After mailing his letter of the prior day to Liverpool and learning that Sam went to London, not Liverpool, H.H. Rogers wrote again from Vichy, France, essentially repeating his news and plans of the prior letter, signing “Admiral” [MTHHR 628].
Isabel Lyon’s journal summary: Lyon went to Redding but refused to allow a female to drive her from Branchville to the new house site, as she’d been in two accidents prior with female drivers. Finally a male was there to drive her:
June 14 Friday – On board the Minneapolis en route to England Sam wrote an aphorism for German cartoonist Peter Richards, who was returning to Berlin after working for various US newspapers for two decades: “Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / For / Mr. Richards / June 14/07.” [MTP]. Note: see June 16 for more on Richards.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: All day I have been thinking about the little Redding house, and it is a good thing again to have something to take my mind away from loneliness.
June 15 Saturday – On board the Minneapolis en route to England Sam gave a reading from his Autobiography MS, though it is not known just what he read [Fatout, MT Speaking 676]. Written across the top of the second and third pages of a concert program held in the saloon in aid of the Seaman’s Orphanage at 8:30 p.m.: “Please tell the story of the twins, one got drunk and affected the other” [MTP]. Note: Source gives this as to Carlotta Welles.
June 16 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: It’s a hot Sunday night and I’m sitting in Santa’s music room. The sounds from the streets would make one think of a terrible carnival; for the automobiles whirl along with toots and siren calls and trumpettings and now there is a motorcycle zipping down toward Washington Square and small boys are making whistles of grass blades and as I glance out of the window couples—and couples—forever saunter past. It is I alone who sit companionless [MTP TS 70].
June 17 Monday – The last night on board the Minneapolis en route to England, Sam wrote a poem on the back of a menu to Carlotta Welles:
There’s many a maid that’s dear & sweet,
In Paris, Versailles, Marly
But not one maid in any of those before-mentioned towns
That can compare with Charley. / M.T.
Front seat—don’t forget [MTAq 41].
June 18 Tuesday – The S.S. Minneapolis docked at Tilbury, England at 4 a.m.
Just after 10 a.m., Sam came down the gangplank and was roused by the lusty cheers of the stevedores. In a few minutes he first met George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) on the dock. The Pall Mall Gazette, p. 7, reported:
“G.B.S.” AND MARK TWAIN.
FIRST MEETING OF TWO GREAT MEN
THE PALMIST’S PREDICTION.
——— ——— ———
A BIOGRAPHY AND AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
June 18-July 13, 1907 Saturday
June 18-July 13 Saturday (the dates of the English visit) – Richard Barr wrote from Leeds: “I have some sympathy wth funeral festivities, my own are in course of preparation. I intend being present. I’m a bit ‘put out’ that I can’t sing at yours….The papers say you are to meet Paderewski. Please do not take any free lessons at the piano. I do not wish you to have a hasty funeral” [MTP].
June 19 Wednesday – Paine gives us Sam’s busy schedule the day after his arrival:
Sir Thomas Lipton and Bram Stoker, old friends, were among the first to present themselves, and there was no break in the line of callers.
June 20 Thursday – Sam pulled off a breach of etiquette at 8 a.m. that was widely reported, and one Livy would undoubtedly have scolded him for. New York Times, June 21, p.1, dateline June 20, London:
TWAIN STARTLES LONDON.
Strolls in Bathrobe and Bare Legs from Hotel for a Plunge.
Special Cablegram.
Copyright, 1907, by THE NEW YORK TIMES CO.