Dublin in the Summer of 1905 - Day By Day

June 20 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight after dinner as Jean and I sat in the glow of the fire burning on the good big hearth in the living room, Mr. Clemens paced the room and told Jean the story of Japan and her change of government, about the Daimios and the Shogun and the almost spiritual power of the Mikado. The talk was brought about by Mr. Clemens speaking of the Chinese and Japanese working for such low wages that they cannot be admitted to this country for they would underwork and starve out Americans. It’s powerfully good talk.

June 21 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Samuel J. Elder.

I have read your article with great interest—& also with great profit. I am glad to have it, & I thank you.

I was at the meeting you speak of, & offered & explained the two motions I went there to make —then hurried away. But they passed. One of them was the “life & 50 years” proposition.

June 22 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Jean and I drove over to Marlboro and then trolleyed to Keene in the rain today. It was a nice trip—moist.

Mr. Clemens read more of that satire dwelling on the currency and he made a beautiful allusion to Katherine of Aragon. Dear, foolish, gentle, loving Katherine. Today Mr. Clemens talked about the Japanese battle front being 400 miles long. Grant’s was 1200 miles and Grant was the only General ever, who didn’t hold councils of war.

June 23 Friday – Tuckey puts this day as the last work Sam did on “Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes” [135]. Note: also, Starrett, MT Encyc. 736.

June 24 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell. After several pages of bile dumped about Theodore Roosevelt, though he believed “praise & blame” were “unwarrantable terms when applied to coffee-mills”—in other words, man has no more control over his acts than a coffee-mill—Sam wrote of his work and daughters:

I began a new book here in this enchanting solitude 35 days ago. I have done 33 full days’ work on it. To-day I have not worked. There was another day in this present month wherein I did not work—you will know that date without my telling you.

June 25 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.

June 26 Monday – Sam wrote the poem “Apostrophe to Death,” not published in his lifetime:

O Death, O sweet & gracious friend,
I bare my smitten head to Thee, & at thy sacred feet
I set my life’s extinguished lamp & lay my bruised heart

[Tuckey, “The ‘Me’ and the Machine” 135; Scott, Poetry MT 126-7]. Note: Hill gives the title as “An Invocation to Death” (as does Miss Lyon in the entry below) and notes that Sam read the poem to the “cozy group around the fire, and the next day Miss Lyon was ‘weak with the wonder of that poem’ all day long” [110].

June 27 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: All day I’ve been weak with the wonder of that poem [See June 26 journal]. Mr. Clemens made some corrections in it and then let me take it— to read and read this morning. Later he came down stairs and talked about the kind of woman Mrs. Howells is. I’d just been saying that according to the way that Mr. Howells has depicted womankind in “Miss Billard’s Inspiration” [sic] he must have either an enchanting wife, or an utterly inconsequential one, and I think it is probably the latter, but there is that inconsequential side to every woman anyway.

June 28 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

This is a line to say there’s a report in Norfolk, Conn. (which we are doing what we can to keep out of the papers) that Clara’s horse has been running away with her. It isn’t so. It was her horse, but she wasn’t in the carriage.

Jean & I expect to go see Clara in a few days—as soon as we get a permit from the doctor, which may come any day now. It is pretty cold weather here, but we don’t mind it.

With warm regards to both of you [MTHHR 587-8].

June 29 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Norfolk, Conn.

Ah dear heart, I am very sorry you are not going to be able to sing the Two Grenadiers BUT I shan’t be sorry if you are with us instead of out on the concert stage singing for strangers.

Yes, my bronchial affection is in a sense permanent: my port lung got a permanent damage in Berlin, & if I should catch 500 colds they would all be followed by bronchitis.

June 3 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: These days I am carried away by Margaret Oglevie [sic Ogilvy]. Barrie will never approach that book again. Late evenings after Mr. Clemens and Jean have gone to their rooms I sit before the open fire and read in the room steeped in tobacco smoke, such good contenting smoke. You want to cry in pain over the beauty of this living [MTP TS 62]. Note: Margaret Ogilvy (1896) by Sir James M. Barrie, was a rather maudlin tribute to his mother, Margaret Ogilvy.

June 30 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Hamlin Garland.

June 4 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today Jean and I drove along a lot of lovely highways and byways. Patrick’s horse is so nice to drive behind, and gives you only pleasurable emotions, doesn’t drive your heart into your throat by shying at nothing. We found lots of flowers and saw many birds too, and when we came home at 5 we found Mr. Clemens lying on the long couch, all cuddled up in his dressing gown for there wasn’t any fire in the room. Then after tea we had music. It is so good to be alive, and so alive [MTP TS 63].

June 5 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today is the anniversary of the great tragedy of this family. Sunday evening after that long day with Mother in Florence and after a sweet chat with Santissima [Clara], Mrs. Clemens’s light went out—now I can see Mr. Clemens’s face when I flew into his room and told him to go to Mrs. Clemens’s room. “Is it an alarm?” he said—but I didn’t know, they only told me to run and get him [MTP TS 63].

June 6 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Wrote Mr. Duneka not to trouble Mr. Howells about the book or Mark Twain letters. C.C. & J.L.C. want to collect & compile the letters” [MTP TS 20].

writes of Clemens’ attempt to persuade Howells to take on his biography:

June 7 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper: “Please hand to bearer & charge to me, paper copy of your ‘Rudiments of Manners,’ also paper copy of your ‘How to Conceal Mental Vacancy & Seem Intelligent’” [MTP]. Note: Hill points out this sarcasm as one of Sam’s “savage moods” and “disbelief in the Harper integrity” [112].

June 8 Thursday – Clara Clemens’ 31 birthday. Clara was in Norfolk, Conn. In Dublin,N.H. Sam wrote to her in care of Mrs. Bratenglier.

June 9 Friday – Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Robert E. Park, Secretary of the Congo Reform Association of America, in reference to John R. Gow’s June 6 inquiry. Some time ago Sam had instructed Harpers to forward “King Leopold’s Soliloquy” to them; he inquired on June 8 about the matter and they apologized that they’d been unable to find their address.

May 10 Wednesday – The New York Times, May 11, p. 1 ran a squib that Clara Clemens was operated on in the afternoon by Dr. Hartley (likely Dr. Frank Hartley 1856-1913).

At 8 p.m. at 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.

dear, it’s over, & Clara is doing well. She had a famous surgeon—D . Hartley. It was a bad appendix—long & slim & with crooks in it; it was getting ready to be a dangerous case.

Good-night dear Sue—I am very tired, on account of the solicitude. / Holy Saml [MTP].

May 11 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

May 12 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Isabel V. Lyon in Dublin N.H. (only the envelope survives) [MTP]. Note: judging from Lyon’s journal entry below, this likely was a telegram with news of Clara’s condition, and news that he was not ready to come to Dublin quite yet.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Santissima’s temperature is normal. There are no complications, but Mr. Clemens won’t come yet” [MTP TS 57]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Telegram this morning. / Pulse 80. Temperature 99. / Everything satisfactory [MTP TS 18].

May 13 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We walked around the Lake, Jean and I—a beautiful walk. The native people are so gentle and sweet-eyed, with soft lazy speech. We met a couple of men who had a setter with them. The owner eyed Prosper and said “I reckon my dawg won’t hurt him.” We found a glorious bank of violets, painted trillium, and trailing “Hobble bush.” You don’t always find it trailing. “Nature’s Garden” makes the country so enjoyable and it is so interesting to hear from Mr. Clemens and Jean how sweet and lovely Neltje Blanchan is [MTP TS 57].

May 14 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Evening now, and the voices of Jean and Italian Teresa come to me as Jean is having her usual confab with Teresa. How their voices rise and fall in the sweet Italian cadences.

The summer, the months and weeks and days and hours must count for many things done when they are ended. I mustn’t write down what I want to do for then they won’t be done. Only everyday I must think toward their completion [MTP TS 57].

May 15 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I’m anxious about the Aeolion. It doesn’t come and there is no word from it. Every day Mr. Clemens sends telegrams telling of C.C’s condition. Every day it has improved” [MTP TS 57]. Note: the referred to telegrams are not extant, but when Lyon gives specifics of Clara’s condition it is clear she has rec’d word from Clemens.

May 16 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote an introductory letter for his nephew Samuel Moffett to Bellamy Storer, American ambassador to Vienna, Austria.

I beg that you will allow me the privilege of introducing to your favor my nephew S. E. Moffett, one of the editors of “Collier’s Weekly” who is sent to Europe to gather some facts from governmental sources, & if you can send him to the officials he needs to see, I shall be very grateful. I vouch for his honorable character, his discretion & his honesty. He will do your kindness no discredit.