December 2 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Dinner—Mrs. Kate Douglas Riggs” [NB 43 TS 30].

December 3 Monday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Augustus T. Gurlitz (1843-1928), New York attorney representing Rudyard Kipling.

I thank you quite immeasurably for the Kipling set, & you must send for the Fenno lot whenever you need it, for I doubt if I get a chance in six months to study the matter….

If you didn’t get Howells to make an affidavit, he must do it. Everybody should help [MTP].

December 4 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Plasmon to Hutton. / Aldine Club—evening—no reporters. W.W. Ellsworth. / Traveling with a corpse” [NB 43 TS 30]. Note: indeed there were reporters at the Aldine Club this evening. The NY Times reported on the dinner and Sam’s speech on Dec. 15: Mark Twain at the Aldine Club

December 5 Wednesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister. After some delay caused by registering the letter, Sam got MacAlister’s letter on Dec. 4, referred to in a cable, and then cabled his approval.

December 6 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “St. Nicholas Society, Dinner Delmonico’s.(?)7 p.m.” [NB 43 TS 30].

December 7 Friday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam replied to Christian B. Tauchnitz.

Indeed I will do you that “great favor” with very great pleasure, and shall hold those books in high regard as a remembrancer of the pleasant relations which have subsisted unbroken between us this long stretch of years [MTP: TS Curt Otto, Verlag Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1912, p.126]. Note:Tauchnitz’ incoming not extant. See entries in Vol. I & II.

December 8 Saturday – L.J. Bridgman’s article, “To Mark Twain,” ran in Harper’s Weekly. Tenney: “Source: Listed in The Twainian, II (March, 1940), 3 as ‘poem illustrated by author’; a search of this issue was unsuccessful, and the citation appears to be incorrect” [32]

December 9 Sunday – [date in PDF box]

December 10 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Bad head-cold—from exposure at Motts. Woke up with it at 3 a.m. Was treated by Helmer (osteopath) at 3 this afternoon. Cold all gone before 11 to-night. No physician could do that wonderful thing” [NB 43 TS 31]. Note: Motts also mentioned for Dec. 18 dinner; NB entry.

Ella T. Smith wrote to Sam about this day, her letter not extant but referred to in his reply of Jan. 1, 1901 [MTP].

December 11 Tuesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Augustus T. Gurlitz, N.Y. Attorney for Kipling at this time.

December 12 Wednesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Edmund Clarence Stedman.

“It is most kind of President Dodge, but I am most likely to stay at home, for I am dead, dead, dead tired of talking & feeding. I have crept out of all my engagements except one tonight & one in the middle of January…” [MTP].

December 13 Thursday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote one line on a postcard to Augustus T. Gurlitz, a N.Y. attorney he considered hiring: “What would it cost?—definitely” [MTP]. Note: Sam wanted to bring suit against Chicago publisher Butler Brothers for issuing an unauthorized edition of the “Library of Wit and Humor by Mark Twain.”

Sam’s notebook: “Aldrich, Boston?” [NB 43 TS 31].

December 14 Friday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Irving Bacheller.

December 15 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “N.E. Dinner?” [NB 43 TS 31].

Harper’s Weekly featured a cover portrait of Mark Twain by the renowned English artist William Nicholson. No text was given. See insert.

December 16 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Two tickets in card-case for Xn Science lecture by ex-Judge Clarkson (Omaha) Carnegie Hall 3 p.m.” [NB 43 TS 31]. Note: Joseph Clarkson gave a lecture to a packed hall in support of Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science, which he claimed had performed two million cases of healing [NY Times, Dec. 17, p. 7].

December 17 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Possible dinner with Harvey. See Thursday / The whole family dinner Rogers—telephone or Thursday” [NB 43 TS 31].

Sam wrote a reply to Richard Watson Gilder (incoming not extant), about the price of an article:

Dear Gilder: / But won’t you offer a price yourself? And make it a final one, so’s we shan’t lose time dickering.

December 18 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Dinner at Mr. Mott’s 8 pm 17 E 47th / HOWELLS Lunch at 1 Century Club 7 W. 43d” [NB 43 TS 31]. Note: Jordan Lawrence Mott, Jr.; Sam gives the same address for Mott as he did in his Dec. 9 entry, connecting Mott to Winston Churchill’s visit.

Sam lunched with William Dean Howells at the Century Club [MTHL 2: 725: NB 43 TS 31].

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Mrs. Elizabeth Evans.

December 19 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Opera with Col Harvey / Owen Wister coming, 10.30.” [Note: source gives Livy as writer of the opera engagement. Also:] “dinner with Harvey. See Monday. His carriage will arrive for me at 6.30” [NB 43 TS 31-32].

December 20 Thursday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Clarence F. Forrest, thanking “the Committee” for the invitation but declining [MTP]. Note: Forrest is not further identified.

Sam also wrote to Mr. Griswold.

“I shall be very glad indeed to have the Dresden edition of my old friend’s books in my library in this house. I knew him twenty years, and was fond of him, and held him in as high honor as I have held any man living or dead” [MTP].

December 21 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Sir Martin / N.E. Dinner—to-day or tomorrow” [NB 43 TS 32].

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Irving Bacheller, declining an invitation. He had not accepted one since Nov. 12 and “declined an average of three a day ever since—the last three from my own home (Hartford).” He added that “The book charmed me!” [MTP]. Note: See Dec. 5 and 14 for, Eben Holden; A Tale of the North Country. Also see Gribben 36.

December 22 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “N.E. Dinner. To-day [?] Go at 9.30? or 10? / Dinner Tablock—7.30” [NB 43 TS 32]. Note: John Tatlock?

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote again to Augustus T. Gurlitz.

I hope you can look in here anytime to-day before 6 (or 7) this evening, as I am going to dine at 8 away out toward 90th street, & I leave for Elmira, New York, for several days Monday morning at 9.

December 23 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Howells and W.B. Suyman the Boer at 11 a.m” [NB 43 TS 32]. Note: W.B. Suyman was identified in a Jan. 31, 1900 NY Tribune, p. 5 article, “Brave Hearts in London” as a Boer General. The above likely a luncheon.

At 14 W. 10th in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Harriet E. Whitmore.

December 24 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Lake wood? / With Harvey?” [NB 43 TS 32].

Sam’s note of Christmas wishes (catalogued: written sometime before Dec. 25) to an unidentified person appeared in the N.Y. Tribune on Jan. 25, 1901, p.8 [MTP].

At 10 a.m. the Clemenses left N.Y.C. for Elmira for Christmas. The trip occupied most of the day. They planned to stay until Dec. 29 [Dec. 22 to Gurlitz; Dec 23 to Whitmore].

December 25 Tuesday – Christmas in Elmira.

Sam inscribed a copy of Tom Sawyer to Warren Leary: “To / Warren Leary / with the kindest regards of / The Author. / We ought never to do wrong when people are looking. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Xmas, 1900” [MTP]. Note: Warren Leary (1891-1959) was Katy Leary’s nephew from Elmira [“The Fenton Leary Family” MS in Elmira College]. Thanks to Mark Woodhouse of Elmira College.

December 26 Wednesday – In Owensville, Indiana, D.B. Montgomery wrote to Sam seeking genealogical information on the Montgomery clan in Kentucky. He enclosed a printed informational family history on the Montgomery’s [MTP]. Note: On Dec. 30 Sam forwarded the letter to his sister Pamela Moffett, as he was “not interested” in the subject.