April 21 Thursday — Sam began a note to daughter Clara which he evidently didn’t finish: “Dear / You didn’t tell me, but I have found out that you—well, I [rest illegible].”
At 7:30 a.m. Sam wrote a note to Albert B. Paine asking for his spectacles and for a glass pitcher. It was the last piece of writing he would ever do [MTP].
During the day, Albert B. Paine wrote for Sam to Dorothy Quick.
Dear Dorothy:
April 22 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Elizabeth Wallace.
Dear Betsy: / It is not conveyable in words. I mean my vanity—rotten joy in the dear and pleasant things you say of me, and in my enviable standing in your class, as revealed by the class’s answer to your challenge. So I shall not try to do the conveying, but only say I am grateful—a truth which you would easily divine, even if I said nothing at all.
April 23 Friday - On a page of notes in the Lyon-Ashcroft MS, Sam wrote under the heading “Eavesdropping,” “Apl. 23 Clara went to Mr. Rogers. (His letter)” [L-A MS XIV]. Note: the letter from H.H. Rogers in the source as follows:
My dear Clemens:
I had a call this morning from Clara, when she told me of her troubles, and after she had said you knew of her coming to me, I ventured to say that I would be very glad to take up the matter, if you desired it, and see if I could straighten it out to your entire satisfaction.
April 24 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Robert J. Collier.
Dear Robert:-—
If in my time I shall have your good and dear father’s happy fortune, be glad for me, as I am glad for him; but grieve for those I leave behind, as I am grieving for yours.
With my love,
S.L. Clemens
(MTP: Peter F. Collier, In Memoriam 1910).
Sam’s new guestbook:
April 25 Sunday - In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Apr. 23 from James M. Beck.
April 26 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Jean Clemens finally came home, signing into the guestbook and giving her address as “Stormfield” [Hill 226; guestbook below]. Note: Hill further points out that Jean would never leave again; that an adjoining 125 acreage with barns and livestock, called “The Italian Farm,” became hers. The purchase had been arranged in Feb. for $4,200, and was one of his final acts as Twain’s business manager.
April 27 Tuesday — Clemens went to New York City and spent the night with the Rogers family [Apr. 26 telegram to HHR]. Note: the nature of the visit, whether personal or business or both, is not known.
April 28 Wednesday — Sam likely returned to Redding from NYC this day.
April 29 Thursday — In Redding, Conn.
April 3 Saturday — Sam and H.H. Rogers attended the banquet in Norfolk, Va. celebrating the completion of Rogers’ railroad there. The New York Times of Apr. 4, reported the event on p.10:
VIRGINIANS GIVE PRAISE TO ROGERS
Show Recognition of His Accomplishment in Building the Virginian Railway.
$20 BANQUET IN NORFOLK
Rogers Says Road is a Business Enterprise, but His Interests Are Common with State
Special to The New York, Times.
April 3 Sunday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to the Clowns of Barnum & Bailey Circus, who had cabled him this day asking him the following:
THE CLOWNS OF BARNUM AND BAILEYS CIRCUS RECOGNIZING YOU AS THE WORLDS GREATEST LAUGHMAKER WILL CONSIDER IT AN HONOR IF YOU WILL BE THEIR LUNCHEON GUEST AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN SUNDAY AFTERNOON APRIL THIRD AT TWO WILL YOU PLEASE ANSWER COLLECT BARNUM AND BAILEY [MTP].
Sam’s reply by collect cable:
April 30 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a note, “How to get to Stormfield” to an unidentified person [MTP].
Pali (not further identified) wrote from Hawaii to send a contribution for Mark Twain’s Library and related his tales of being in Redding and of various personages there. He expressed regret that Hawaii had not been able to see Twain during his 1895 world tour (The Warrimoo was quarantined) [MTP].
April 4 Sunday — In Norfolk, Va. Sam telegraphed Clara about Horace Hazen’s note, that he had been discharged [MTP: L-A MS]. Note: the telegram is not extant.
April 4 Monday — Chauncey M. Depew wrote from Wash DC to ask Sam for an intro to a volume of his speeches, “no matter how short” [MTP]. Note: “Ans”
April 5 Monday — In the evening Sam sailed for New York City, where he evidently stayed two days before continuing on to Redding, Conn. [Mar. 28 to Nunnally].
The Norfolk LEDGER-DISPATCH reported Sam’s presence in Norfolk on this day:
MARK TWAIN DELIGHTED THE LITTLE ONES
Famous Humorist at the City Kindergarten and the High School
TOTS GIVE HIM A DOSE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE
April 6 Tuesday - Sam reached New York City, and stayed the night at H.H. Rogers’ home [MT P: L-AMS].
Oscar Williams wrote from Westport, Conn. to offer a farm for sale [MTP].
April 6 Wednesday— In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Charles T. Lark.
Dear Mr. Lark,
I have told Paine that I want the money derived from the sale of the farm, which I had given, but not conveyed, to my daughter Jean, to be used to erect a building for the Mark Twain Library of Redding, the building to be called the Jean L. Clemens Memorial Building.
April 7 Wednesday — In NYC in the a.m., Sam went to see Clara to get to the bottom of the firing of Horace Hazen:
April 8 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to John A. Macy.
Dear Mr. Macy: / I emptied into my Autobiography some remarks about Mr. Greenwood’s able book, and then took a notion to slam them into Harper’s Monthly: but that would put them off much too long, so I made a booklet of them, to be issued to-day. Now that is too early by three entire weeks, as I found last night when I got back from a week’s absence in the South and read your letter. It’s vexatious! but let it go, it can’t be helped.
April 9 Friday - Sam recorded events at Stormfield “‘a day or two” after his Apr. 7 arrival from NY:
As I have said, I reached Stormfield on the 7th of April. Things were buzzing so to speak. Ashcroft came up a day or two later. Meantime I had not happened to see anything of Horace, & was too busy to look into his case. When Ashcroft arrived he paid Horace to date, & I signed the check. He paid him at the old rate—a confession, apparently, that Horace had not been “discharged,” & that Ashcroft knew it.
April 9 Saturday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam inscribed his photo (1906 of him sitting up in bed reading) to Marion S. Allen (Mrs. William H. Allen). “To Mrs. William H. Allen, with the high esteem & guarded affection of / Mark Twain Bermuda, April 9/ 10.” [MTP].
Sam began reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). Gribben quotes Paine:
August 1 Saturday – Samuel E. Moffett, Sam’s nephew and longtime booster, “drowned in the surf off the Jersey beach,” while his wife and children (Anita Moffett, 17 and Francis Clemens Moffat, 13) watched from shore. He was 47. At the time of his death he was an editor of Collier’s Weekly [MTHHR 651n1; NY Times Aug. 2, 1908 p.1]. Note: The Times gives Normandie-By-The-Sea (now Normandy Beach, N.J. just sount of Pt. Pleasant). See Aug. 6 to Emilie R. Rogers. The New York Times reported the tragedy on the front page of its Aug. 2 issue:
August 10 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey.
To-day I have written as follows
To Clara Clemens in Europe:
1. “By the original understanding with Paine I was to edit the Biography, with power to approve & disapprove with finality. But I have turned that editing over to Col. Harvey, & he has accepted the job.
August 10 Tuesday — The New York Times, p.7, noted the end of one of Mark Twain’s passions:
END OF CHILDREN’S THEATRE.
East Side Playhouse Dissolved Because of Lack of Funds.
August 11 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn., Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to an unidentified person.
“Mr.Tallman should keep in touch with Mr Robert Collier in order that he may keep what Mr. Collier & Mr Clemens have done in the Accident Insurance matter from going astray.