October 11 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam replied to the Oct. 7 from Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.).
Mariechen dear, Flower of Nieces, it was my purpose to thank you for your letter in person, but the court had a more different story about it, & it forbade Fairhaven, & furnished me a couple of days’ testifying to do.
October 12 Saturday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam inscribed a copy of JA to Frances E. Greville: “To / The Countess of Warwick / with the warm regards of / her latest & most / devoted admirer / Mark Twain / Tuxedo Park, N.Y. / October 12, 1907.” [MTP]. Note: see IVL below.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: (Clipping here) / Miss Dix of 57 West 57 St. will entertain the Countess of Warwick and S.L. Clemens today at luncheon at Delmonicoes. / (June 1937—nearly 30 years later, and I am giving the clipping to Eulabee Dix) [MTP TS 114].
October 13 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: All day except when we went to Mrs. Hoyt’s for luncheon we have been playing Hearts and using Coffee beans for counters. Ashcroft makes a pleasant, bright, considerate and properly appreciative third hand. The King won everything, with occasional streaks of very bad luck, and on one occasion when he picked up a bad hand he said, “This would be a hell of a hand even in the Kingdom of Heaven.” He is so sweet and winsome to play with, and shouts with delight when I pile Hearts upon Mr.
October 14 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
October 15 Tuesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Theodore A. Bingham.
Dear Bingham: / Here is a far-wandering breath from over the fields of Long Ago. Ten days ago we found this letter among relics & mementoes of Susy & her Mother. It is from Susy to her Mother. It was an eager message out of a beating heart then; it is compliment, affection & gratitude uttered from the grave, now.
Yours sincerely
S. L. Clemens
October 16 Wednesday – The New York Times, Oct. 17, p.18, ran an article about humor in Ashcroft v. Hammond libel case, and a deposition of Sam’s read in court this day:
SWORN JEST BY MARK TWAIN.
———
Humorist Says He First Met John Hays Hammond in Jail—Ashcroft’s Suit.
October 17 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote a short note of recommendation for Mrs. Frances A. Ramsay as a stenographer “To whom it may concern”: I take the pleasure in saying that as a stenographer I found Mrs Ramsay competent & in all ways satisfactory” [MTP].
October 18 Friday – Joseph B. Gilder for Putnam’s Monthly wrote to again request Sam allow their sketch artist to draw Sam for the magazine; they’d done Choate and Howells; the artist didn’t require Clemens to sit but could walk around the room [MTP].
October 19 Saturday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J.
October 20 Sunday – Alice Minnie Herts wrote for the Children’s Theatre to Miss Lyon, correcting a prior invitation [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Oct. 23”
October 21 Monday – A run on the Knickerbocker Trust Co. bank in N.Y.C. caused panic elsewhere, and the bank was forced to close its doors the next day. Sam had deposits of about $51,000 at the bank. J.P. Morgan would gain the help of fellow bankers, including John D. Rockefeller, to raise funds and import $100,000,000 in gold from Europe to restore confidence. See Oct. 22. H.H. Rogers and Katharine Harrison had originally recommended the Knickerbocker Trust Co. to Sam. A business slowdown from the resulting spreading panic lasted for months.
October 22 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Oh, it’s too dreadful. Every penny the King has, fifty one thousand dollars, is in the Knickerbocker Trust Co. and it has suspended payment. It has gone crashing into a terrible state. I was in town and read of the panic in the Times, and Ashcroft and I went to the bank, at 30th st and Fifth Avenue to see crowds of people there, with bank books in their quivering hands. And then I came back to Tuxedo to find the King in bed and so cheerful and beautiful and brave, and trying not to show his anxiety.
October 23 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to “Miss Anonyma.”
Dear Miss Anonyma: / This is to express my joy in the fact that you are able to go fishing, & to thank you very heartily for letting me share in the result. It is my purpose to call & say these things orally this afternoon, & so I am merely uttering them with the pen as a precaution, since it often happens—as you will have noticed—that the things we propose to do get interfered with & do not occur.
October 24 Thursday – Sam returned to 21 Fifth Ave. for the winter. Clara Clemens had been “domiciled in the house several days”; Isabel Lyon and servants would follow on Oct. 26 [Oct. 28 to Nunnally].
October 25 Friday – The annual Cotillion Ball of the Tuxedo Club was held and the New York Times reported the event, Oct. 26, p.11. If Sam attended, as his letter of Oct. 23 to “Miss Anonyma” shows, he would have had to have returned from 21 Fifth Ave. for the event, since he moved back on Oct. 24. No mention of him was made in the Times article, though H.H. Rogers, Jr. (Harry) and wife Mary were listed, so he likely canceled plans to attend, returning to his N.Y.C. house. Possibly the events at the Knickerbocker Trust Co. led to the changed plans.
October 26 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I don’t know how I got through all of it—doing 9 days’ work in 3 days, but it is over and I am in New York. Arrived at 3 to find the King and AB at billiards. I brought in the pretty little cat and the King was glad to see it. Myron Whitney came in to rehearse his concert program with Clara for the 11th. His voice is superb. They had to have the King come in to hear it, but the King was much annoyed, and hated to leave his billiards, even tho’ he had to concede that Whitney’s voice was wonderful.
October 27 Sunday – The Sunday Magazine of the New York Tribune featured “Mark Twain’s Autobiography” and a full page portrait of him. An identical cover was published in the Sunday Magazine of the St. Louis Republic, as well as many other newspapers. See insert.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I sat with the King a long time this morning. He said he couldn’t do any phrasing in answer to a note from someone, because he and Paine had played billiards until nearly 3 o’clock. / Knickerbocker coming along—perhaps” [MTP TS 119].
October 28 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
October 29 Tuesday – John C. Gardner wrote from Toronto. Gardner denied being a “crank” yet sent 10 pages typed double-spaced relating his life long exposure to Twain’s books and the fall from his estimation caused by the frustration of reading Sam’s Autobiography in serial form in a magazine. While trying to be humorous, Gardner became tedious (this is a rare editorial comment dedicated to Tom Tenney) [MTP].
October 30 Wednesday – Roi Cooper Megrue for Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam: “Can we arrange for a dramatization of your story [‘]Our Italian Guide[‘] with Mr Timmory in Paris” [MTP].
October 31 Thursday – Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Miss Lyon about dramatizing progress [MTP].
November – In N.Y. Sam had invitations printed for the Nov. 19 Children’s Educational Theatre performance of P&P.
Mr. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) invites you to inspect the work of The Children’s Educational Theatre Educational Alliance, 197 East Broadway on Tuesday evening, November 19th at 8,15
When a special complimentary performance will be given of “Prince and Pauper” dramatized from his book for the Children’s Educational Theatre
R. S. V. P. 21 Fifth Avenue
November 1 Friday – Overland Monthly ran a sketch of Mark Twain by Alice Resor, accompanied by excerpts of IA reprinted from the magazine’s Oct. 1868 issue [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 192].
November 2 Saturday — Emma N. Warfield (Mrs. Edwin Warfield) wrote to Miss Lyon: “Dr Clemens and you have interested me delightfully and I am so pleased that such a busy man should stop even for a moment to think of me” [MTP].
November 3 Sunday – Linnie M. Bourne wrote from Washington D.C. to relate a “slip of the tongue” she’d made as a girl going with her grandfather to see Twain and Cable read in Washngton. When asked where they were going in such a hurry, she replied, “We’re going to hear Cain and Able read” [MTP].