March 27 Friday – The Bermuda Royal Gazette of Mar. 31 reported Sam’s reading of Kipling’s poems at Shoreby on Mar. 27 for the guests of Mrs. Mary Allen Peck: “He read these in a tone and with a depth of feeling that gave to the verses a value seldom recognized” [D. Hoffman 108]. Note: Gribben offers more detail:
March 28 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: Sometimes it seems to me as if each person were surrounded by a wonderful color, and that is a sacrilege to try to penetrate it. There be some whose color could never be merged into that of another person, but in the main there is only one person in all the world whose color would match with its mate, to make a perfect harmony. For we can’t be many things to many people.
March 29 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: The band concert at Prospect when dear John Wayland and the King sat on a rug apart from a batch of women, for when he goes to listing to music he doesn’t want anything else. No feminine chatter—and up near the tennis court sat Madame Wayland, and Mrs. John W. and Josephine Dascomb [sic Daskam] Bacon—such a chatterer—and a Mrs. Gordon. Then home. This afternoon we went over to the Long Beach on the South Shore where the King and Zoe Freeman went in swimming.
March 30 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We had a darling lazy sail this afternoon with Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, and then tea in the billiard room—that to give Zoe Freeman a chance for a cup, for he was tired” [MTP: IVL TS 40].
March 31 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The King is going boating with Nicholas Murray Butler and Lord Gray [sic Grey] who arrived yesterday on the Bermudian” [MTP: IVL TS 40-41]. Note: Albert Henry George Grey, 4th Earl Grey (1851–1917) served as Canada’s Ninth Governor General (1904-1911). He established the Grey Cup for the Canadian football championship. The Cup was initially for the top amateur rugby team in 1909, but since 1965 it has been the prize for the top professional football team.
April – Gessford’s photograph of Mark Twain ran in Forum, facing p. 441. “No significant commentary” [Tenney, ALR Third Annual Supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1979) 192].
April 1 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: The Bermudian sailed away with such a cargo of folks. The greatest “miss” as these Bermuda darkeys say, is the Waylands.
April 2 Thursday – Clemens was in Bermuda.
April 3 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: “I’ve just been reading AB’s article on Stedman in the April ‘Pearson’s’ and somehow it isn’t all Stedman at all. I’m afraid that some of it is a eulogization of Paine through a dead man” [MTP: IVL TS 37-38].
April 4 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: We went out to the Euryalus again to the children’s party this time—and it was a rough little voyage. 15 of us had to cramp-up in a tiny cabin and our stomachs felt badly. But we got inside the breakwater and onto the flagship and officers Gray and Boyer and Beatty showed us about and were very good to us and made the children adorably happy.
April 5 Sunday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to daughter Clara in N.Y.C.
Clärchen dear, I hope you are entirely well & hearty by this time. I don’t know where you are, but you are drifting professionally around somewhere, I suppose—& hope.
April 6 Monday – Bermuda. Mark Twain and Earl Grey met and talked to the children at the garrison school. Their comments appeared in the Apr. 19 NY Times. See Apr. 8 below for these.
April 7 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: The King and I went out to the reefs this morning in a kind of royal party, for Lord Gray the Governor General of Canada and Lady Gray and Mrs. (Bermuda Governor) Wodehouse went—and I did like it very much. Mostly it was quiet and restful. But I had a talk with Mrs. Wodehouse who turned to me at once when someone said of me “That is Mark Twain’s private secretary.” We got into the glass bottomed boats and were rowed out over the coral reefs.
April 8 Wednesday – The New York Times, Apr. 19, p. X4, “Mark Twain’s Outing in Bermuda” ran with three photos of Twain and Irene Gerken (not identified), Twain and H.H. Rogers, and one of Earl Grey and Lt. Gen. Wodehouse:
Mark Twain Tells About the Cat.
April 9 Thursday – Bermuda. Either this day or the next, Sam lost his half of the seashell used to identify him to Margaret Blackmer (see May 25 to Blackmer). It was found by a servant in the mess hall at Prospect Army Garrison and handed to Major Malcolm D. Graham, who mailed it back to Sam in New York. See also May 25 to Graham.
April 10 Friday – Several photographs of Mark Twain swimming in the Bahamas are given this date [Bob Slotta, eBay item 180516263500, June 4, 2010; See Hellen Allen’s of Apr. 27, D. Hoffman, picture p. 122]. Note: advertised at that time as the “Only known Under Water Images of him.”
April 11 Saturday – In Bermuda, the Clemens party boarded the steamer Bermudian for a return trip to New York. Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We sailed—Josephine Dascomb [sic Daskam Bacon] is killable—the King calls her ‘Josephine Bastard Bacon’” [MTP: IVL TS 45]. Note: see Mar. 29 on Bacon.
April 12 Sunday – Sam was aboard the Bermudian on the way home to New York. In the Apr. 14 edition of the New York Times, p. 9, Sam related an incident aboard ship:
Mark Twain told of one exciting incident of the voyage home. The ocean he characterized as “most rude.” On Sunday afternoon, dressed in his famous white suit, he was standing at the stern rail with Miss Dorothy Sturgis of Boston, watching the play of the ship’s log, when a wave struck the vessel astern and a great comber climbed over the rail and drenched the pair.
April 13 Monday – The Bermudian docked in New York in the afternoon. On Apr. 14 the NewYork Times, p. 9 ran this tale about Mark Twain and Rogers returning:
TWAIN AND ROGERS BACK FROM BERMUDA
Offer to Lend $2 to Rogers Not Accepted—Strain of Traveling with Financier.
JOINS ANTI-NOISE CRUSADE
“Fourteen Banks of England Could Not Finance” Lakes to Gulf Canal.
——— ——— ——— ———
April 14 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer.
Dear Margaret, we arrived from Bermuda yesterday afternoon, & in the accumulation of letters I find yours of a fortnight ago. I’ve brought the little angel-fish pin—badge of my Aquarium— & will keep it for you till you come, which I hope will be as soon as Miss Tewksbury can escort you. Come VERY soon!
April 15 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Apr. 14 of Margaret Blackmer.
I have your letter of yesterday, & you are a very dear Margaret, & have given me great pleasure. Now as I cipher it you are to go away with your papa Thursday the 16th (to-morrow) & will return on or “about” the 23d.
April 16 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J. Thursday night.
Friday—Saturday—Sunday—Monday—then you are here! Monday afternoon. About half-past 2, I suppose. Well, I shall be on the lookout, & powerful glad to see you. Shan’t we have good times? I do most confidently guess so.
In Bermuda I bought a trinket for your Christmas. But I can’t keep it that long, I’ll give it to you now.
April 17 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Richard C. Carr in Bogotville, Chicoutine County, P.Q., Canada.
April 18 Saturday – Mark Twain, H.H. Rogers and State Senator Patrick H. McCarren were guests of honor at the Humorists and Cartoonists Beefsteak Dinner at Reisenwebers in NYC. His speech and the event was covered by the NY Times, Apr. 19, p.16.
TWAIN AND M’CARREN MIX WIT WITH ART
——— ——— ———
Twain on Heroes.
———
LONG PAT WANTS TO PAINT
And Incidentally Devour Beefsteak and Beer with Cartoonists.
April 19 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Sturgis.
Easter Morning
Yes indeed, dear Miss Dorothy, I want the pictures you took; & I am hoping that Mr. Russell will not forget to send copies of those which he took of you & me, for I want good ones to frame & hand in the billiard room of the house I am building in the country—the said room’s name being “The Aquarium,” because it is to be the Aquarium’s official headquarters.