May 22 Saturday — Clemens inscribed his copy of The Mother and the Father. Dramatic Passages, (1909) by William Dean Howells: “S. L. Clemens / from W.D. Howells. / May 22, 1909” [Gribben 332].
Andrew Carnegie wrote from Stresa, Italy: his sympathies to Sam on learning of the death of H.H. Rogers:
May 24 Monday — Columbia University sent Sam an engraved invitation to exercises of Commencement Week, May 24 to June 4 [MTP]. Note: likely before this date; included a baseball game Yale v. Columbia on May 29,
May 25 Tuesday — Sam recorded going to New York to check with a secretary of the late H.H, Rogers, Miss A. Watson, who had been put in charge of looking into the financial records to see if the Ashcrofts had committed theft.
May 26 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a postcard to Marjorie Breckenridge.
The summer is clothed in all its splendors, Marjorie dear, & it is beautiful here now. I have to go away & leave it for a while, but shall be back the middle of June, & by that time I hope you will be housed in that shady nook in the glen.
With love & good wishes / SLC [MTAq 258].
May 27 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to a non-extant from Poultney Bigelow.
Dear Poultney: /Indeed yes the invitation does hold good till September.
I, too, was invited to join the psycho-theologized band. ‘Think of that: Sunday School inviting Satan.
Very well, I've seen an expurgated Don Quixote; also an expurgated Bible. They were merely sucked oranges. / Yours ever [MTP].
University of Missouri sent an engraved invitation to their 67" Commencement, May 30 to June 2 [MTP]. Note: “Declined May 27, ‘09”
May 28 Friday — Sam recorded a blunder by Ashcroft that led to the revocation of a power of attorney to Lvon and a search for a general power of attorney:
Toward the end of May our tempest in a teapot was pulling away at a great rate, & making a lively stir amongst the farms & hamlets scattered in the woodsy hills & vales of our neighborhood. Every day brought its fresh little event & added a new text for gossip. Whatever either side did or said was known next day all around, & discussed.
May 29 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a short note to Isabel V. Lyon revoking in writing the power of attorney he’d given her and revoked orally some months ago. Albert Bigelow Paine signed as a witness [MTP].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person about the appointment of Paine as his secretary and manager of his affairs [MTP: American Art Assoc.—Anderson Galleries catalog, Nov. 11-12, 1937, No. 4346, Item 89].
May 30 Sunday — Sam recorded that daughter Clara and Albert Bigelow Paine were still not satisfied about the possible existence of a general power of attorney that Sam may have given unaware to Ralph W. Ashcroft.
May 31 Monday — Sam and Albert Bigelow Paine went to New York City and made a startling discovery:
We went down the next morning, Monday, & while I loafed in the Hotel Grosvenor, Paine went to the banks. Sure enough, in the Liberty National he found a power of attorney! A stately one, a liberal one, an all-comprehensive one! By it I transferred all my belongings, down to my last shirt, to the Ashcrofts, to do as they pleased with.
June — George Gordon Coulton (1858-1947) book From St. Francis to Dante, etc. (1907), was signed by Sam on the front pastedown endpaper: “SL. Clemens /June, 1909, /Stormfield. From James M Beck” [Gribben 161]. Note; see other entries on Beck.
June 1 Tuesday — Sam noted in his after Sept, 25, 1909 letter that on this day was the “Discovery of the Blanket Power of Attorney,” referring to the Nov. 14, 1908 document. In the L-A MS, section XVIII, however, he puts the discovery at Monday, May 31. Did the search take two days or one? Sam included in a copy of the document revoking the discovered power of attorney, signed by Clemens and received and recorded by John N. Nickerson, Redding Town Clerk, on June 3.
June 2 Wednesday — Italian journalist Felice Ferrero visited Stormfield and interviewed Mark Twain for the most popular Italian newspaper in Italy, Corriere della Sera. Zuppello includes the interview in her 2008 paper for American Literary Realism. In part: .
June 3 Thursday — Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote a registered letter to Sam, acknowledging the revocation of the Nov. 14, 1908 power of attorney, which was recorded by John N. Nickerson on this day (see entry). He added:
June 4 Friday - In Redding, Conn, Sam wrote a postcard (picturing Stormfield) to Dorothy Quick.
“Dorothy Dear, it is too bad, but I shall be in Baltimore from the 8th to the 12th, This is an engagement I made with Francesca several months ago—she graduates on the 10 th of June. “It is a nice photo—thank you, dear, with lots of love—S L C” [MTP; MTAq 259].
Sam gave this day as the day the Ashcrofts left Redding for New York and Europe:
June 5 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to a non-extant letter from James Beauchamp (“Champ”) Clark, House of Representatives, Washington.
Dear Champ Clark: / Is the new copyright law acceptable to me? Emphatically, yes! Clark, it is the only sane, & clearly-defined, & just & righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no trouble in arriving at this decision.
June 7 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Amelia Dunne Hookway.
June 8 Tuesday — Clara Clemens’ 35th birthday. Sam left for New York and Baltimore with Albert Bigelow Paine. They would spend the night in NYC and leave for Baltimore and Catonsville, Maryland on June 9 [June 7 to Nunnally].
June 9 Wednesday — Sam and Albert Paine arrived in Baltimore and took rooms at the Belvedere Hotel. Sam refused to see all reporters, who were clamoring for his response to charges of plagiarism for not fully crediting Greenwood in Is Shakespeare Dead? In the evening, in response to a written question on the matter, Sam gave a reply (see article following the next).
June 10 Thursday — Clemens and Paine traveled 20 miles to Catonsville, Maryland and St. Timothy’s School for Frances Nunnally’s graduation. Clemens’ commencement speech was his last public speaking performance. The speech as reported by Baltimore News, “Advice to Girls,” in Fatout:
June 11 Friday - The New York Times ran a follow-up article, p.3 on the plagiarism flap over Sam’s work, “Is Shakespeare Dead?” datelined June 10, Baltimore:
TWAIN’S FOOTNOTE LOST.
Wrote One, He Says, Crediting Author
and Publisher of Borrowed Matter.
Special to The New York Times.
BALTIMORE, Md., June 10.—Referring to the charges of Plagiarism, in connection with his book, “Is Shakespeare Dead?” Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) today said:
June 12 Saturday - In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a notecard (2x3 inches), likely a gift enclosure, to Gertrude (probably Natkin): “Dear Gertrude I send you my love. / Mark Twain / June 12/09” [MTP: James Cummins catalog, No. 64, Item 19].
Charles T, Lark, assistant to John B. Stanchfield, attorney, wrote to Albert Bigelow Paine concerning the flight of the Ashcrofts on June 8:
So the soiled birds had flown.
June 13 Sunday - According to Sam’s guestbook entry on the page ending May 4, this was the day it was discovered that the Ashcrofts had sailed for England on June 8. Sam’s note claims they did so after promising Stanchfield they would wait for his investigation to be completed. See May 4 entry.
June 14 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to an unidentified man.
June 15 Tuesday - James B. Shropshire wrote a fan appreciation letter from Brooklyn to Sam. His quill was quite worn out [MTP].
June 16 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to William Robertson Coe.
Dear Mr. Coe: / I was glad to hear from you, & I wish you had come yourself, & brought your letter & Mrs. Mai. I am in the doctor’s hands, as a foreguessed result of the Baltimore trip, which was a hard one for an old person, for it was cold & rainy; but the engagement was five months old & had to be kept.