Sixth Trip to Bermuda - Day By Day

April 1 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Bermuda: The Bermudian sailed away with such a cargo of folks. The greatest “miss” as these Bermuda darkeys say, is the Waylands.

April 10 Friday – Several photographs of Mark Twain swimming in the Bahamas are given this date [Bob Slotta, eBay item 180516263500, June 4, 2010; See Hellen Allen’s of Apr. 27, D. Hoffman, picture p. 122]. Note: advertised at that time as the “Only known Under Water Images of him.”

April 11 Saturday – In Bermuda, the Clemens party boarded the steamer Bermudian for a return trip to New York. Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “We sailed—Josephine Dascomb [sic Daskam Bacon] is killable—the King calls her ‘Josephine Bastard Bacon’” [MTP: IVL TS 45]. Note: see Mar. 29 on Bacon.

April 12 Sunday – Sam was aboard the Bermudian on the way home to New York. In the Apr. 14 edition of the New York Times, p. 9, Sam related an incident aboard ship:

Mark Twain told of one exciting incident of the voyage home. The ocean he characterized as “most rude.” On Sunday afternoon, dressed in his famous white suit, he was standing at the stern rail with Miss Dorothy Sturgis of Boston, watching the play of the ship’s log, when a wave struck the vessel astern and a great comber climbed over the rail and drenched the pair.

April 13 Monday – The Bermudian docked in New York in the afternoon. On Apr. 14 the NewYork Times, p. 9 ran this tale about Mark Twain and Rogers returning:

TWAIN AND ROGERS BACK FROM BERMUDA

Offer to Lend $2 to Rogers Not Accepted—Strain of Traveling with Financier.

JOINS ANTI-NOISE CRUSADE

“Fourteen Banks of England Could Not Finance” Lakes to Gulf Canal.

——— ——— ——— ———  

April 2 Thursday – Clemens was in Bermuda.

April 3 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: “I’ve just been reading AB’s article on Stedman in the April ‘Pearson’s’ and somehow it isn’t all Stedman at all. I’m afraid that some of it is a eulogization of Paine through a dead man” [MTP: IVL TS 37-38].

April 4 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: We went out to the Euryalus again to the children’s party this time—and it was a rough little voyage. 15 of us had to cramp-up in a tiny cabin and our stomachs felt badly. But we got inside the breakwater and onto the flagship and officers Gray and Boyer and Beatty showed us about and were very good to us and made the children adorably happy.

April 5 Sunday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to daughter Clara in N.Y.C.  

Clärchen dear, I hope you are entirely well & hearty by this time. I don’t know where you are, but you are drifting professionally around somewhere, I suppose—& hope.

April 6 Monday – Bermuda. Mark Twain and Earl Grey met and talked to the children at the garrison school. Their comments appeared in the Apr. 19 NY Times. See Apr. 8 below for these.

April 7 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Bermuda: The King and I went out to the reefs this morning in a kind of royal party, for Lord Gray the Governor General of Canada and Lady Gray and Mrs. (Bermuda Governor) Wodehouse went—and I did like it very much. Mostly it was quiet and restful. But I had a talk with Mrs. Wodehouse who turned to me at once when someone said of me “That is Mark Twain’s private secretary.” We got into the glass bottomed boats and were rowed out over the coral reefs.

April 8 Wednesday – The New York Times, Apr. 19, p. X4, “Mark Twain’s Outing in Bermuda” ran with three photos of Twain and Irene Gerken (not identified), Twain and H.H. Rogers, and one of Earl Grey and Lt. Gen. Wodehouse:

Mark Twain Tells About the Cat.

April 9 Thursday – Bermuda. Either this day or the next, Sam lost his half of the seashell used to identify him to Margaret Blackmer (see May 25 to Blackmer). It was found by a servant in the mess hall at Prospect Army Garrison and handed to Major Malcolm D. Graham, who mailed it back to Sam in New York. See also May 25 to Graham.

February 22 Saturday – Sam, Isabel V. Lyon, H.H. Rogers, and William Evarts Benjamin sailed again for Bermuda. Rogers brought along his valet. Lyon noted in her journal that “Mr. Rogers came feebly onto the boat, a sick sick man” [MTHHR 645n1; D. Hoffman 102].

In his A.D. of Feb. 19, Sam had said:

February 23 Sunday – A somewhat longer article on H.H. Rogers and Twain leaving for Bermuda ran on the front page of the New York Times.

ROGERS AND TWAIN SAIL

———

Exchanging Jests on the Pier—Financier Thinks the Outlook Bright.

“This is what I get for being in bad company,” said Mark Twain, humorist, pointing to H. H. Rogers, financier, when a host of interviewers descended upon him yesterday morning on the deck of the steamship Bermudian, previous to their departure for Bermuda.

February 24 Monday – The Clemens party arrived in Bermuda and Sam checked into the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda where he wrote two postcards to Frances Nunnally.

Francesca dear, I got your letter just as I was leaving New York—thank you dear.

I am writing now because I suppose that the linchpin got lost in the mails; & if that is so, I want you to drop me a line here, so that I can replace it with another.

February 25 Tuesday – In Bermuda, Sam made another excursion in the donkey cart, this time to Spanish Point with Irene Gerken. Reginald handled the donkey as before, while Isabel Lyon, Elizabeth Wallace, and William Benjamin all walked. H.H. Rogers did not go [D. Hoffman 105]. See Lyon’s entry below:

February 26 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. NY, Isabel Lyon telephoned Albert Bigelow Paine after discovering some missing older letters of Clemens’. Isabel Lyon’s diary:

Tino [a nickname for Paine] in Redding…to ask about letters that I am missing and that the King and Santa [Clara] would hold me responsible for. He was cross and answered in a burst of ill temper that he had many letters and would take them when he wanted to. This is not quite right of Tino—and is a new and regrettable attitude [Hill 201].

February 27 Thursday – In Bermuda, the Clemens party was entertained by a baseball game [D. Hoffman 105].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Ball game today / I turn on the practical faucet & suggest a publisher. This apropos to Miss W’s [Wallace’s] charming ms. reminiscent of her life in France. She’s been reading it to me on the porch & I went off to find the King just arrived from a trip to town with Mr. Rogers. St. Simeon Slylites—or Skylights—[MTP: IVL TS 27-28].

February 28 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: There was a cold & tearing wind all day, so that when the Trinidad finally got in after lying to anchor outside the harbor, her smoke stacks were white with brine, & her few passengers looked wearily shaken. This morning Sorellatua & I went to a quaint little Belgian woman who has brought a quantity of lovely lace here for sale. The King drives out, & he walks out, & he is gay & young & full of a new and splendid life. Mr.

February 29 Saturday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam began a letter to daughter  Clara that he added a PS to on Mar. 2.  

March 1 Sunday – In Bermuda, the Clemens party took an excursion to see the new island aquarium, which had opened on Jan. 1, 1908. D. Hoffman gives “the effervescent and obliging U.S. consul,” W. Maxwell Greene as organizer of the trip, and writes: Goodwin Gosling, secretary to the Bermuda Natural History Society, also came aboard….

March 10 Tuesday – At the invitation of ship’s captain, John Gay, Sam spent much of the day aboard a British Cruiser, the HMS Cressy, enjoying laughter and stories in the Officers’ Mess [Mar. 12 to Quick]. William Evarts Benjamin accompanied him. The Cressy was one of three warships anchored at the Dockyard, Ireland Island, Sandys Parish [D. Hoffman 115-16]. Note: since he did not mention his time aboard ship in the following three letters, they were likely written in the a.m. before boarding. Sam would mention this time aboard the ship to Dorothy Quick in his Mar.

March 11 Wednesday – Sam attended a garden party at the Governor J.H. Wodehouse’s house and enjoyed music by a British band, which he called the “best band in the British army save one—the Horseguards” [Mar. 12 to Quick]. Note: if IVL’s lined out phrase for this date means anything, Benjamin went with him.

March 12 Thursday – At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick that he added to on Mar. 13, and 16. Sam relates activities of this day, as well as time spent on Mar. 10 and 11.

My poor little Dorothy, I hope you are well again, & will write a line & tell me so. I wish you were here—you would be on your feet right away.

We are to be here about 20 days yet. We sail for New York April 1.