Stormfield - Day By Day

October 29 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a longer letter to Beatrice M. Benjamin.

October 3 Saturday – At “Stormfield,” Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Miss Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), author of Anne of Green Gables (1908):

Dear Miss Montgomery:

Mr. Clemens directs me to thank you for your charming book & says I may quote to you from his letter to Francis Wilson about it:

In “Anne of Green Gables” you will find the dearest & most moving & delightful child since the immortal Alice.

October 30 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margery H. Clinton.

Dear Miss Margery: / Good, you’re coming! Well, I am glad. Even dern glad, as Pontius Pilate used to say. I think it was Pontius; at any rate it was the one that wrote Paradise Lost & was eventually burned by the Church for falling down the mountain & breaking the tables of stone. I never cared for him, although an ancestor. He ought to have known he was in no condition to carry things down a mountain & everybody looking at him. / With love & thanks … [MTP].

October 30 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Schuyler Allen in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Dear Helen: / I hope you & your mother reached your island safe & well. It was a short visit you gave me, but it was delightful, & it must be repeated some day & lengthened, if you’ll be so good.

October 31 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam finished his Oct. 24, 26, 27, 28, 29 to Frances Nunnally.

[written in the side margin of page 1:] Oct. 31. I haven’t finished this letter yet, but Ashcroft wants to play billiards; so I will start it along & finish it another time. With very much love. SLC

[caption on an enclosed photograph] Affectionate greetings from this triangle, or trilogy, or whatever its right name is.

October 4 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “Fanny the pony, Jeannette Cholmely-Jones’s little steed arrived today for me to use and to take care of. The use of her for the care of her. She is very soft; Benares and I just drove around the circle and that is all, before we took her out to the stall made for her in the garage. We shan’t be able to drive her for a fortnight” [MTP: IVL TS 68].

October 5 Monday – In his Oct. 6 to Margaret Blackmer, Sam related activities of this day. See entry.

Edith Virginia Gazella wrote from Rutherford, NJ to Sam. She’d sent him a copy of La Vita Nova, her new magazine and asked if he might look it over and offer how she might improve it. She’d ridden on the streetcar with him a few times but never had the nerve to speak to him. As a girl she would hide in the attic and read HF and TS and wanted so badly to be a boy [MTP].

October 6 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Clara at 17 Livington Place, N.Y.C.  

Clärchen dear, your letter sounds ever so good. Your sunny apartment seems to be a rare & fine stroke of luck. I hope you have secured a refusal of it for a year or two; but if you haven’t you can keep it anyway, no doubt, if you behave yourself. Miss Lyon will be able to give me a lot of details concerning the place when she comes back.

October 6 Wednesday — Clara Clemens married Ossip Gabrilowitsch at Stormfield. Joe Twichell performed the ceremony. The New York Times reported the event on Oct. 7, p. 9:

 MISS CLEMENS WEDS MR. GABRILOWITSCH 

Mark Twain, in Scarlet Cap and Gown, Sees His Daughter Married to Russian Pianist.

AVOIDS “CEREMONY DELAYS”

October 7 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 6 to Margaret Blackmer. Here is the Oct. 7 segment:

October 7 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam sent a telegram and then wrote a letter to Helen Schuyler Allen at the Hotel St. Andrew, N.Y.C. The telegram simply said: “Will write, wait for letter.”

Here is his letter:

October 8 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 6, 7 to Margaret Blackmer. Here is the Oct. 8 segment:

 Oct. 8. You’ve been gone so long, now, that I suppose I wouldn’t know you if I met you. But fortunately there’s the shell! By that I should know you in a minute; for there’s only the one shell.

October 9 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam finished his Oct. 6, 7, 8 to Margaret Blackmer at the Misses Tewksbury’s School in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY.  

Friday, Oct. 9. I have a lovely letter from your mother this morning, & I gather from it that one of these days you are going to invite me again to visit the school. That is very pleasant, dear heart, I shall be sure to accept.

October 9 Saturday — Sam’s new guestbook:

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote from London to Sam.

I know that you feel as I do about the Congo. You have magnificently proved it in your book.

I am sending you mine “The Crime of the Congo” which brings the facts up to date.

September 1 Tuesday – Sam had Mr. & Mrs. Albert Bigelow Paine, and daughter Louise to luncheon [Sept. 3 to Quick]. Note: he did not enter this visit into his new guestbook.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Lou and David arrived to visit mother, but I couldn’t meet them, for I was full of the King’s reception today” [MTP: IVL TS 62].

Bruno Frede wrote from Altona a.d. Elbe, Germany to ask for Mark Twain’s autograph. He included some verses in German [MTP].

September 1 Wednesday — Sam’s new guestbook:

September 10 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Will [Charles Wark] came up this morning. / At early breakfast came 2 letters from Paine. Benares and I were in the loggia at breakfast and I had to have him read them, for since the day when Paine wrote a letter that must have been terrible, for he forestalled my reading of it.”

September 10 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Schuyler Allen in Franklin, N.Y. Text is not available [MTP].

Sam also wrote a postcard to Dorothy Quick.
I am glad to hear you are enjoying yourself. I am still a prisoner in the house these past 3 months, with no prospect of getting out for a long time to come. But I guess it’s all right. Infirmities & disabilities are quite proper to old age, Have a good time while you are young, dear! /With lots of love / ...[MTP; MTAq 264].

September 11 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Benares came this afternoon” [MTP: IVL TS 64-65].

September 12 Saturday – Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Silas W. Driggs ——————————— ———————————

Teresa W. Driggs From over the Ridge September 12

Clara D. Driggs

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We worked in the garret over ms. trunks” [MTP: IVL TS 65].

September 12 Sunday — Sam’s new guestbook:

September 13 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We worked again over ms. trunks and in the afternoon drove over to the Griggs log cabin, Benares and I” [MTP: IVL TS 65].

September 13 Monday — The New York Times, p.8, reported a resolution to the Clemens-Ashcroft conflict and law suits:

MARK TWAIN SUITS ALL OFF.

All Litigation Between Him and the Ashcrofts is Finally Dropped

The differences between Mark Twain and his daughter, Miss Clara Clemens, on the one side, and his former secretary Mrs. Ralph Ashcroft, and her husband have been settled without an appeal to the courts. All criticism of the conduct of Mrs. Ashcroft has been withdrawn and all suits have been dropped.

September 14 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I went to town with Santa” [MTP: IVL TS 65].

September 14 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Melville E. Stone.

Dear Stone: / I have been a sick man for several months, & shut up in the house by the doctors, & you go & choose this time to have a banquet, when I can’t come! I am sorry. But I don't blame you—you couldn’t help it.