21 Fifth Ave - Day By Day

January 1 Wednesday – In N.Y.C. Sam attended a farewell dinner for William Dean Howells at the Metropolitan Club, thrown by Col. Harvey. According to Lyon’s datebook for Jan. 2, Sam spoke last after six speeches [MTP: IVL TS 1]. See entry.  

Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Robert Underwood Johnson. “Dear Mr. Johnson: / Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him to say that he is not sufficiently interested to vote on coming membership” [MTP]. Note: Lyon dictated this to Josephine Hobby.

Sam also wrote to Eden Phillpotts.

January 2 Thursday – The New York Times, p. 9 ran this brief squib of an upcoming gathering:

Lotos Club Dinner to Mark Twain

A jollification dinner is announced at the Lotos Club on Jan. 11. Mark Twain is to be the guest of the evening.

Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Loose jointed & weary I am in bed all day. Not doing much thinking— not doing any work but reading Daniel Deronda with greater delight than ever.

January 3 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed an aphorism on a calendar page for Jan. 3, 1908 to Mr. Randall: “We ought never to do wrong when people are looking. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain” [MTP: Profiles in History catalogs, No. 1, Item 55].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Dear Santa [Clara] comes in to sit by me because I’m in bed to get rid of the grippe & when I said it was such a wonderful place to stay in that I’d do it often, she remarked, “Yes, we certainly have got the bed bug habit.”

January 4 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  The King sent up an irritated message to me by Katherine this morning. “Was I ill? If not, then some telephoning.” I hopped out of bed, and put on wrapper and a shawl and went down. He was crossish—as the King has never been before— & pounded the bed. Dan Frohman must be telephoned to at once for a box for Ethel Barrymore’s play today—But Dan Frohman is never at his Lyceum office until after 11.

January 5 Sunday – H.H. Rogers and wife paid a call on Sam at 21 Fifth Ave.

Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Mr. Lawrence, president of the Lotos club were here today to talk up the dinner that is to be given next Saturday evening in the King’s honor & the Oxford degree is to be made the feature of it. All day the King was in bed & he is resting up from these long fearful billiard nights, when he played so nervously from 8:3- until 12-1-2 & even 4 o’clock— that time—

January 6 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  A.B. came in for a few minutes this a.m. but not to give any chance for billiards. The King was sorry. Miss Nichols arrived. The King is interested because Will Gillette speaks of buying a “Jay Farm” up in Redding.

January 7 Tuesday – Clara Clemens gave a recital at the 21 Fifth Ave. house.

January 8 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  The King walked up to the Irish exhibition at Madison Square Garden this morning and saw Miss Yeates [sic Yeats], the poet’s sister.

January 9 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J.

(Only the envelope survives) [MTP].

Sam also wrote to the Knickerbocker Trust Co. Depositors’ Committee:

Jan. 9, 1908

To the Committee:

January 10 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Cackle Madame. / Jean ill.

Eulabee Dix has been in to show the King some miniatures, & before she gets married, Sat. the 18th—she wants to & plans to paint a miniature of the King in his Oxford robe. The King says of her that she is “beautifully architected” and she is. Slim, tallish, beautiful upper lip, long almond finger nails. Everything is right. It is dreadful that life has to be made up of extremes, either the King’s life is a blurr with too much billiards or it is bleak with none.

January 11 Saturday – In the evening Mark Twain was the guest of honor at a Lotos Club Dinner. The New York Times reported the event on Jan. 12, p. 2. Sam was obviously in his element:  

MARK TWAIN NOW AFTER COMPLIMENTS

Says at Lotos Club Dinner He’s Collecting Them as some Others Do Stamps.

——— ——— ———

NAME DISHES FOR HIS WORKS

Author Took a Nap Between Courses Because He Was Going to be Up So Late.

January 12 Sunday – The New York Times, p.9, reported another event for this evening, where Mark Twain would be in attendance:

INVITED BY NORIDCA.

———

Mark Twain, Dr. Butler, Edison, and Sir Purdon Clarke to be Singer’s Guests.

There will be a veritable herd of social lions at Sherry’s to-night, when Mme. Nordica gives her musicale for more than 400 guests. She has engaged the entire second floor suite for the occasion.

January 13 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Jan. 12 of  Dorothy Quick:

You are just a dear little Dorothy, & I am ever so glad you are coming Saturday morning. We’ll have a fine holiday together. I wish a person could rent you or buy you, just as he would other choice real estate, then I wouldn’t let you go back any more.

Love & good-night, dear [MTP; MTAq 96].

January 14 Tuesday – After giving several luncheons for his close male friends earlier in the “season,” Sam gave the first of his “Doe Luncheons” on this day, at the suggestion (perhaps urging) of Kate Douglas Riggs. Twelve ladies plus Twain were included in the luncheon, including Riggs, daughter Clara, Isabel Lyon, Geraldine Farrar, Henrietta Barnes Farrar (Mrs. Sidney Farrar), Mrs. Harleston Deacon, Mrs. Frank N. Doubleday, Mrs. Robert Collier, Miss Emily W. Burbank, Dorothea Gilder, Geraldine Farrar, Mrs. Farrar, Ethel Barrymore and Clara Stanchfield [Jan.

January 15 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.

Where are you, dear? At school? I suppose so, but you haven’t told me.

What I am anxious to know is, can’t you steal a day or two & run up & see us? Miss Lyon & I will go down & board your train at Philadelphia & escort you up. Or, we will go all the way to Baltimore if you prefer. And gladly.

January 16 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Julia Langdon Loomis (1871- 1948), daughter of Charles J. and Ida Clark Langdon.

Jan 16, I think.

Julie dear, it is 10:30 a.m., & time for the dictating to begin; but it wont for I am half full of whisky—& not yet finished. I have discovered a cold, & this is to break it up; for with my bronchital tendencies I dread a cold  as the Presbyterian burnt child dreads perdition.

January 17 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Julia Langdon Loomis.

Julie dear, I wrote you a day or 2 ago, but I don’t remember what I said because I was sober at the time. But this not is to say—to-wit: The next Doe-Luncheon will happen at the above address on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 1 p.m. You are hereby invited. Don’t fail to come, dear.

[in left margin] Not one declined before! [MTP].

Sam also wrote to the Other Depositors of the Knickerbocker Trust Co..

January 18 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “King is really ill today” [MTP: IVL TS 10]. Note: bronchitis.  

In the afternoon Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) died of a heart attack in his NYC apartment. He was 74 [NY Times Jan 19, 1908, p. 1, “E.C. Stedman Dies of Heart Disease.”]

At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to a reporter from the N.Y. Times, who solicited his response to the news of Stedman’s death. Sam’s dictated response ran in the Jan. 19 paper.

MARK TWAIN STUNNED.

———

January 19 Sunday – In the morning Dr. Edward Quintard checked on Sam’s condition again, noting that he was “no worse” [NY Times Jan. 20, 1908, p.9 “Mark Twain No Worse”].

The New York Times, Jan. 18, 1908, ran a squib under “City Brevities” p.9:

January 20 Monday – The New York Times, p. 9 reported on Sam’s health, as “No Worse”:

MARK TWAIN NO WORSE

———

But Still In Bed Nursing His Cold—To Go to Bermuda Soon.

There was at least one sore man in the city yesterday, and he was sore in two places at once—in his chest and in his mind. The man was Samuel L. Clemens, whom almost everybody knows best as “Mark Twain.”

January 21 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.

Francesca dear

I wish you were here

And had 2 weeks to spare. Then I would pack you & Miss Lyon aboard ship & sail for Bermuda Saturday. Now you see what you are robbing her of—& she needs that trip very much. I shall take nobody but Ashcroft—yet he hasn’t any use for a voyage.

You are going to spend those ten Easter days here, aren’t you, dear? We’ll come to Catonville & fetch you.

January 22 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie.

Dear St. Andrew:

I have had to decline this mission a couple of times in the past year or two, & the most I can do now is to forward the letter—which I do, & leave it to take its chances.

That whisky came very handy. I had a very wild & exasperating cold, but a pint of the whisky tamed it in 3 minutes by the watch & I did not wake up again for ten hours.

I shall be out of bed tomorrow, I think, & I’ll break straightway for Bermuda [MTP].

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January 23 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y.

January 24 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Jan. 16 from Elinor Sutherlin Glyn.  The letter below was Sam’s protest of the publication by Glyn of a pamphlet (Mark Twain on Three Weeks) which included a purported verbatim account of a conversation between the two discussing Glyn’s novel, Three Weeks (1907), which had shocked sensibilities (and gained many sales) for it’s unabashed account of an adulterous relationship.

January 25 Saturday – Sam left for Bermuda on the Bermudian. The New York Times, Jan. 26, p. 4 noted his departure and added:

“Mr. Clemens has been ill at his home for some days, and when he arrived at the vessel went direct to his stateroom and did not emerge while the vessel was at her pier. He was ordered south by his physician because of an attack of laryngitis.”