August – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote his aphorism about honors deserved to E.M. Bowney [MTP: Philip C. Duschnes catalogs, No. 183, Item 98].

On a Wednesday of this month in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Sam wrote to daughter Clara. “Oh, Clara dear, I am so sorry your surgery isn’t over, & so glad its is imminently next-door to it. I hope you will soon be complete & perfect. We are paying fine tribute when we spare Maggie to you, but we do it with love & without a pang. / With hugs & kisses & plenty of them / Father” [MTP].  

August 1 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam replied to the July 15 of Joy Agnew, daughter of Phillip L. Agnew, editor in chief of Punch.

Unto you greeting & salutation & worship, you dear sweet little right-named Joy! I can see you now almost as vividly as I saw you that night when you sat flashing & beaming upon those sombre swallow-tails.

“Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.”

August 2 Friday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam enclosing a check for £160:7:2 in royalties [MTP].

Frederick A. Duneka wrote to Sam after hearing from Harvey that Sam would give them a story for the Christmas Magazine [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Sent him Wapping Alice”

August 3 Saturday – John and Clara (nee Spaulding) Stanchfield visited Sam in Tuxedo Park, and stayed over through Sunday [New York Times, Aug. 4, p.7, “Tuxedo Park News”].

In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Joseph Hodges Chaote, ambassador to Great Britain, about speaking at the Sept. 23 Jamestown celebration of Robert Fulton inventing the steam boat.

August 4 Sunday – John and Clara (nee Spaulding) Stanchfield ended their two-day visit with Sam in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. [New York Times, Aug. 4, p.7, “Tuxedo Park News”].

Robert P. Elmer wrote from Wayne, Pa. to Sam, asking if the “Moult” in Chapter IV of IA was his grandfather Moulton, “Moult” being his nickname [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Answd. Aug 14, ‘07” and “Moult was a young fellow from Mo. quiet & rather diffident; he had not been away from home before. I have never heard of him since.”

August 5 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote the aphorism about improving bad liquor to Mr. Martin [MTP]. See index for other aphorisms or maxims.

Sam also replied to the July 30 from W.J. Phelps, by writing instructions to Lyon on the bottom and right margin of Phelps’ letter.

August 6 Tuesday – Dorothy Quick was visiting Sam in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. being brave not to be homesick.

Pardon B. Gifford wrote from New Bedford, Mass. to ask Sam “to express some little sentiment about our old city to assist us in booming old home week” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Answd. Aug 9, ‘07”

August 7 Wednesday – Dorothy Quick was visiting Sam in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.

Katherine Gregory wrote to Miss Lyon; this is miscatalogued as to Clemens [MTP].

Adelaide M. Lee (Mrs. Bruce B. Lee) wrote from Sacramento remembering Sam’s lectures in Sacramento and also her late husband’s lectures. She wished he would come to California for the National Irrigation Congress on Sept. 2-7 [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Answd. Aug 20, ‘07”

August 8 Thursday – Dorothy Quick was visiting Sam in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.

Howells & Stokes wrote to Sam, advising that arresting work at the Redding house at this time would “make you liable for between ten and fifteen thousand dollars,” and enclosed a letter from Mr. Carter of Carter & Haskell attys. [MTP].

August 9 Friday – In the evening at Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Miss Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J. some five hours after she’d departed from her Aug. 5 to 9 visit.

Dorothy dear, one of these days I am going to write you a letter the first time I write my other children, but not now, now I haven’t time, because I haven’t anything to do, & I can’t write letters except when I am rushed.

August 10 Saturday – Saturday Evening Post ran an anonymous article, “Boswellizing Mark Twain,” p. 25. Tenney: “Samuel Johnson had his biographer, and now Albert Bigelow Paine has taken on the task with MT, who is amiable and kindly, and provides him with cigars” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.9].

Elvelena W. Morford wrote from England to Sam, glad to know of his safe return; The Morfords were still touring England [MTP].

August 11 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick he finished on Aug. 15.

This isn’t a letter, Dorothy dear, yet I know I ought to write you a letter, because I would write you every time I wrote the other children, & I’ve just finished a letter to Clara. But I never could keep promises very well. However, I shall certainly write you a letter before very long. I wrote to Clara:

August 12 Monday – Emilie R. Rogers wrote from Fairhaven, Mass. to Sam, feeling “a little neglected.” H.H. Rogers was “in worse shape than he cared to acknowledge to anybody” and had spoken of Clemens often [MTHHR 632].

August 13 Tuesday – William F. Saunders wrote from St. Louis to Sam, offering more on the invitation to take a trip on the steamboat Alton with the party of governors [MTP].

Charles E. Wark wrote from Parker House, Boston to advise Sam of Clara’s continued improvement, weight gain of seven pounds and “great improvement” of voice. She was  not overworking; no answer needed since Wark heard that Sam hated to write letters [MTP].

August 15 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Aug.11th to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J.

August 16 Friday – Dorothy Quick wrote from the Truell Inn, Plainfield, N.J. to Sam.

August 17 Saturday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick that he added to on Aug. 18, 19, 21 and 22. For this day, he drew a sketch of an insect:

Do you know what that is? It is a butterfly. Drawn by the artist. The gifted artist. I am the gifted artist. Self-taught.

No, I find it is a grasshopper. It is for your collection. Miss Lyon has nailed it to box, with pins. It took more chloroform than was good for it. And so it is sleeping with its fathers [MTAq 53].

August 18 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Aug. 17 to Dorothy Quick.

We talk about you all the time. You are not a large subject, but a very entertaining one.

“Would I like to have you read to me?” Indeed I should. I couldn’t like anything better.

Don’t you be troubled about your hand, Dorothy. It is a good hand, & has the chiefest of all merits: that it is as easy to read as print.

August 19 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. in the morning, Sam added to his Aug. 17, 18 to Dorothy Quick.

“Just a WEEK” since I saw you! Why, you little, humbug, it is over 3 months; even Miss Lyon, who never gets anything straight but corkscrews & potato peelings & things like that, concedes that its’s upwards of two months. What is the matter with your veracity-mill?

===

Night.

August 20 Tuesday – The New York Times, p.3, announced “on good authority” that Rudyard Kipling was chosen for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1907, and that Mark Twain had been suggested for same.

Joseph T. Brown for Knickerbocker Trust wrote to acknowledge Sam’s “note of the 18th,” placing an order for 1,000 shares of Utah Consolidated [MTP].

August 21 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Aug. 17, 18, 19 to Dorothy Quick.

The Busy Bee

About to-morrow or next day there’ll be a note from the same, I hope, containing that picture of the same & me which the same Kodak’d when the same was here. I suppose you will return to Plainfield for your birthday?

If a parcel arrives there from Harper & Brothers in a day or two, it is for your birthday.

August 22 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Aug. 17 to 21 to Dorothy Quick. “Thursday, 22. I’m collecting red cigar-belts for you against your coming—but I love you notwithstanding”  [MTAq 54].

Sam also wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson in Staten Island, N.Y.: “I am very glad, my dear Miss T. to learn that the option has been paid at last; & since you as desire, you can send your check for the small advance I made you, but do not do it if it can inconvenience you, for there is no hurry” [MTP].

August 23 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We went over to the Deacon’s for tea this afternoon. This is the 2nd Friday that she has had a “bridge party” and we have been bidden for tea.

August 24 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Lucia Hull came this morning to have a chat with the King and he kept her until luncheon time, talking his gospel to her. She held to her own philosophy like the staunch little maid that she is and she stayed to luncheon at my invitation and then we jiggered over to her house to see her mother… [MTP 92].

August 25 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam went to a luncheon and talked for two hours, as related by the following letter to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.