21 Fifth Ave - Day By Day

September 20 Friday – Sam left Fairhaven, Mass. early in the morning on the Kanawha. H.H. Rogers did not accompany him, but Harry and Mary Rogers did [NY Times, Sept. 21, p.18]. Sam arrived in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. in the evening and wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.

September 21 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey

“Dear Colonel— / All right, bang away, go ahead. Yes it will be a ‘red-letter day,’ & a red-headed day, too, for Old Age will take the scalp of Belated Youth that day—mine, to-wit” [MTP]. Note: likely a go-ahead for Harvey’s plans to honor Mark Twain’s 70th birthday.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: All the days are sprinkled with pin cushions. They’re pretty little creatures, and best of all they sell. Teresa calls them my boys. George MacDonald is dead at 83

September 21 Friday – In N.Y.C. Sam began a letter  to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.) that he added to after reaching Norfolk, Conn. Sept. 22, where he finished it on Sept. 23. Daughter Clara was to make her American debut as a concert singer in Norfolk on Sept. 22.

[first page of letter written between typewritten lines of letter to SLC from W. M. Vanderweyde:]

September 21 Saturday – Early in the morning Sam left Tuxedo Park for N.Y.C., where he boarded the Kanawha and left for Jamestown, Va. with Harry Rogers and his wife Mary

Benjamin Rogers, to attend the Robert Fulton Day celebration. Sam would preside at the ceremonies.

September 22 Friday – At 9 a.m. in Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Thomas S. Barbour of the Congo Reform Assoc., Boston, that he was “sending something which you should stop the press & add if humanly possible.” Mounted on another page was the following:

KING LEOPOLD’S SOLILOQUY

THE PUBLISHERS DESIRE TO STATE THAT MR. CLEMENS DECLINES TO ACCEPT
ANY PECUNIARY RETURN FROM THIS BOOKLET, AS IT IS HIS WISH THAT ALL
PROCEEDS OF SALES ABOVE THE COST OF PUBLICATION SHALL BE USED IN

September 22 Saturday – At 3 p.m. in Norfolk, Conn. Sam added to his Sept. 21 to Mary B. Rogers. Norfolk, 3 p.m., 22

I have gone to bed—as usual. It is to be hope that you are in bed, too, & that last night’s hilarious late hours & this morning’s murderously early ones have not broken you down utterly & condemned you to Norfolk again. I had a marvelously narrow escape from death coming up in the train.

===

September 22 Sunday – The New York Times, “Mark Twain Skipper of Rogers’s Yacht,” p.9 reported the Kanawha and Cornelius Vanderbilt’s steam yacht North Star leaving for Jamestown.

September 23 Sunday – In Norfolk, Conn. at midnight, Sam added to his Sept. 21 and 22 letter to Mary B. Rogers.

Midnight. It’s over!,

Sack, it was a distinct triumph!—an unqualified triumph—a triumph without any alloying doubts hanging about it—a beautiful, & blood-stirring, & spirit-satisfying triumph; & I would rather have lost one of my ear than missed it, & I would have contributed the other one to have you there.

September 23 Monday – Norfolk, Va. Sam introduced Rear Admiral Purnell Frederick Harrington (1844-1937) at the Robert Fulton Day ceremonies. The New York Times, Sept. 24 covered the event:

HONOR FULTON AT JAMESTOWN

———

Inventor’s Use of Steam in Navigation Shown in Marine Parade.

September 24 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson.

September 24 Tuesday – Near Norfolk, Va., for the Jamestown Exposition at Sewell’s Point on Hampton Roads, Sam inscribed a portrait drawing of him to Mrs. Hugh Gordon Miller: “To Mrs. Hugh Gordon Miller / With the affectionate & grateful remembrances of / Mark Twain / Jamestown Exposition, / September 24th/07. / (the day after the struggle).” [MTP]. Note: the Exposition was typical of many world fairs and expositions popular in the early part of the 20 Century; it ran from Apr. 26 to Dec.

September 25 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka (letter not extant but referred to in Duneka’s Sept. 26) [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:“Some youngsters here for dinner and a romp. Jean in a turmoil and a nest of tempers because those young guests didn’t assemble in invited sequence. The two Henderson children, Gerald and Hildegarde, didn’t talk a bit—but listened spellbound to every word that fell from Mr. Clemens’s lips” [MTP TS 102].

September 25 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Isabel V. Lyon, with a humorous end note to daughter Jean, in Dublin, N.H.  

About 10 last night Clara took the alarm & fled to the sanitarium in 69 street. It was because the tearing up of the avenue made such a pounding racket. I hope she will stay there—for two reasons. Miss Gordon is good company for her, & there’s none here; & up there she is close to Luckstone.

September 25 Wednesday – At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.

Dear Francesca: / I have just come ashore from the yacht, & am passing by to take the 12.55 Erie RR train for Tuxedo Park. You & your mother are out—naturally, at this time of day. I would have telephoned in advance, but there wasn’t time.

September 26 Wednesday – NYC: Sam inscribed a photograph of himself sitting up in bed to Katy Leary: “It is your human environment that makes the climate. To Katy Leary, with the affectionate regards of her friend. / Mark Twain / Sept 26/06” [MTP].  

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Petit mal all day.  / I got up to lie out in the sunshine with a piteously aching & suffering & quivering spine. AB came out with the mail & he took a lot of it away to dictate answers to Miss Hobby” [MTP TS 122].

September 26 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick.

Dorothy dear, I hear that you are at school, & that you greatly like it& are very busy—all of which is good to hear, & naturally is a great pleasure & comfort to your mother.

September 27 Thursday – In the evening at 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Ralph W. Ashcroft.

The Colonel [Harvey] has just gone. I expected he would not be willing that any but Harpers should issue the brochure, & he wasn’t.

He wants to put the 7 [photographs on being good] in the Xmas Weekly—a huge & elaborate number—& says he can print them perfectly; so I told him to go ahead. Miss Lyon is suffering a severe nervous collapse [MTP].

September 27 Friday – Sam also wrote two letters to J.E. Edmonds, of the Daily State Times of Baton Rouge. A trip down the Mississippi was planned by Theodore Roosevelt, with a suggestion that Mark Twain be the chief pilot. Sam turned down the offer; Edmunds wrote an editorial about it. Sam then wrote these letters, the first a cover letter and the second a blast: “I am often against [President Roosevelt] politically, but this has not affected the friendship existing between us these twenty years.” [MTP].

September 28 Thursday – Sam’s essay: King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule, was published as a pamphlet for the American branch of the Congo Reform Assoc. by The P.R. Warren Co., Boston. Budd: “At least three further printings followed soon afterward, and a ‘Second Edition,’ with additional supplementary material, was issued late in 1905 or early in 1906” [Collected 2: 1010]. Note: Hawkins points out that the pamphlet, by Twain’s suggestion, “contained several photographs of mutilated Congolese.

September 28 Friday – About this day Sam went to Fairhaven, Mass. for the weekend. His Oct. 2 to Clara reveals he left Fairhaven for Dublin on Oct. 1.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Jean, 1:30 and 6:00 on porch.

September 28 Saturday – Frances Nunnally and her mother visited Sam. They played hearts [Oct 2 from Nunnally].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Santa decides to come to town on the 11th.