December 2 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean.
Dear Jean I will attend to the matter regarding translations, even if the pay be very small in money it will be large in entertainment for you & well worth the labor it will cost you.
December 3 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to W.H. Powell, editor of the Hannibal Courier-Post.
December 4 Wednesday – William B. McGann, who was President of the American Plasmon Co. to Apr. 30, 1906, wrote a salary claim to Sam, now acting President and Vice-President. The letter is not extant but is referred to in a New York Times article of Dec. 21, 1907, p. 6, (below). Shortly after Dec. 4, Sam replied to McGann, his letter reprinted in the Dec. 21 article:
MARK TWAIN CONCERN GIVES UP THE GHOST
Plasmon Company of America Unable to Meet Obligations and Receiver is Named.
December 5 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Billie Burke, actress.
It was lovely of you, dear Billie, to say those approving & affectionate things to me out of the good heart & the sweet spirit which are special graces of your nature & they are very welcome.
It is healing & refreshment to the sui-sodden crime-worn soul to see you & John Drew in that bewitching play,—I am coming again to gloat & admire.
December 6 Friday – Thomas Commerford Martin for the Engineer’s Club wrote to Miss Lyon that he was sending his son and carriage for Clemens on Monday (Dec. 9) for the Carnegie’s 70th banquet, and according to sam’s wishes Martin would introduced him third on the program [MTP].
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam.
Dear Mark; / I am just setting out with Charley Clark for Buffalo, where we are to be on duty at a Yale Alumni Dinner tomorrow night.
December 7 Saturday – Eustace D. Conway, son of Moncure Conway, who had died in Paris on Nov. 15, sent Sam an invitation to the funeral service on Dec. 14 at 10:30 a.m.[MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “I’ll go to it”
Charles J. Langdon wrote from Elmira, N.Y. to Sam, enclosing a draft for $25 for a coupon of Atlanta Gas Light Co. He had rec’d no acknowledgement of his Nov. 6 draft for $137.50 [MTP].
December 8 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a postcard (picturing himself in bed and labeled “Mark Twain’s Muse”) to Annie E. Trumbull. “I thank you dear Miss Annie, & wish you a happy holiday season” [MTP].
December 9 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Helena G. Paderewski. “I am glad to have the honor, by grace of Madam Paderewski of standing once more in the presence of my old friend Leschetizky / Very truly …” [MTP: Heritage Book Shop, Nov. 29, 1960].
In the evening Sam spoke at a dedication of the new clubhouse for 400 members of the Engineers Club (Society of Engineers). Fatout writes of the event:
December 10 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick about his amazement at touring the Jewish Technical School for girls.
I am very sorry you didn’t see Peter Pan, you dear child, but you will see it yet. Meantime we can hunt up something else when you come.
Saturday after next? Can’t you come then—& stay over till Monday? We hope you can; & that is why I am writing now, at sleep-time, instead of waiting till tomorrow, when I am going to be busy & could be prevented.
December 11 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon wrote to John A. Kirlicks: “Mr Clemens asks me to write for him & thank you very much for your pleasant letter & the poem & the little pamphlet. He wishes me also to say that such messages as yours are always welcome” [Gribben 384]. Note: Gribben cites from a letter of 7 June 1977 from Kevin B. Mac Donnell, who he says “speculates” that the publication referred to was I’ve Got the Blues Tonight & Other Troubles (1896) by Kirlicks. See other entries on Kirlicks.
December 11-24 Tuesday – Sometime during this period at 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y., Sam wrote to Ignace J. Paderewski (Ignacy Jan Paderewski; 1860-1941), Polish pianist and composer, later Prime Minister of Poland.
December 12 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to the Plasmon Co..of America to tender his resignation as Vice-President and Director of the Plasmon Co. of America [MTP].
Clemens’ A.D. for this day included: Andrew Carnegie continued — he gives two additional millions to Carnegie Institute—Everybody likes attentions—Prince of Wales once showed Mr. Clemens a match-box and told him it was presented to him by King of Spain [MTP: Autdict. 4].
December 13 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Champ Clark (James Beauchamp Clark):
I thank you ever so much for your kind offer, but I want to get an extension on it until some later day—indefinitely later—so that I may finish a dialogue which I began last September, & which I may not take up again for a good while.
December 14 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Dec. 12 telegram from Frank Cavendish Lascelles, by sending one of his own to: Pageant office, Savoy, London: “Best wishes for the greast London pageant it will be the event of the year” [MTP].
Eustace D. Conway finished his Dec. 7 letter to Sam [MTP].
December 15 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Prof. Sloane and his daughter Margaret (debutante) came in today for tea. The talk ran onto Washington and the political rottenness of the place. “No man can be himself there.” Mr. S. said. “Mr. Cleveland alone shook his fist in the faces of the corrupt politicians and made himself hated.
December 16 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “And this day?” [MTP TS 120].
Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote a long letter in a tiny hand.
My dear Chief Servant, / A hearty wish for a blessed Christmas to you and your family, and for many happy returns of the day is leaving my desk to start westward in the direction of your home. May those terrific tempests and angry winds allow my wishes to find your door in time, that you might know your French Member has also thought of you.
December 17 Tuesday – Charles R. Morris wrote from Washington DC to ask Sam if he would include his July 4 oration deliverd at Aurora, Nev. When he was a miner there [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “He has quoted the only sentence of the speech that I remember, & I don’t’ know anything about the rest of it.” See Dec. 18 for Sam’s reply.
George Grantham Bain wrote to Miss Lyon to ask which photos Sam wanted copies of and enclosing a ms. for her to return [MTP].
December 18 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to George L. Beam of the Denver & Rio Grande R.R. Co, Denver, Colo. “Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him & thank you for sending him the photograph & pamphlet. And to use his own words, he said, ‘Tell him I think it is a good strong clean-cut face & I hope it looks like me as that is the way I should like to look’”[MTP]. Note: Beam’s photo and pamphlet are not extant.
December 19 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I am hearing the very first words of the King’s Biography. AB is sitting here and reading them to me. The background of the book. The days that passed four months before the King was born. (He says 5 months before the King was born.) [MTP TS 121].
December 20 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
I suppose you are about to leave for home, dear Francesca, so I am hasting to wish you a happy holiday-time before you get away down there out of my reach. Indeed you are much too far out of my reach even when you are in Catonsville. I wish you were going home by way of New York, so that I could have glimpse of you, you dear little rascal.
December 21 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean.
Dear Jean this is John Howells’s wedding-day. I do not know who it is he is going to marry, I only know the sex. The sex is the main thing, & this time it is the right one.
December 22 Sunday – Sam gave a dinner speech at the Pleiades Club, Hotel Brevoort, which was literally next door to his house at 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Fatout introduces the event:
At the Pleiades Club dinner for Mark Twain, menus were decorated with illustrated quotations from his books. Carter S. Cole, chairman, introduced the guest of honor by paying tribute to his eminence in American literature, praising so lavishly that Mark Twain began his speech with a mild protest [MT Speaking 600].
December 23 Monday – Elmer Z. Burns wrote to Sam, enclosing a photograph of Twain’s cabin at Aurora. “Some of your admirers have placed decorations on this cabin in your honor, but I am sure, if all who would like to do so, could, the cabin would be buried beneath the load” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote for Sam on the letter, “The hillside & the sagebrush look just as they did before, but I think the house looks better than it did formerly”
December 24 Tuesday – William Henry Bishop, American Consul in Palermo, Italy wrote a four-page typed letter to “My dear Mr. Autobiographer”:
It is known that when one gets in front of most any kind of an Auto he is apt to be hurt, so I am not much surprised, after the impact of your current Autobiography (page 487 of the December number of the North American Review), to find myself a corpse.
December, last week – The estimated time of Elinor Glyn’s follow-up 90-minute visit with Clemens at his NY home. This estimate is based on Clemens’ Jan. 13 A.D. See Jan. 13 entry, which also includes Glyn’s description of the meeting, and Anthony Glyn’s Elinor Glyn: a Biography, p. 143-4 which states, “She stayed for an hour and a half and for most of the time they discussed Three Weeks, which he greatly admired, both in matter and in style.” Glyn here neglects Sam’s opinion that publishing such a book was a mistake—a fact that got duly noted in the Sept.