July 6 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “APHORISM / It was a narrow escape. If the sheep had been created first, man would have been a plagiarism. / In the make of his soul & in the movements of his spirit, man is nearer to the sheep than to any other creature” [NB 46 TS 20-21].
To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day
July 7 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “No answer from Jacobs. Telegraphed Collier (night dispatch, suggesting that he accept Am. Pub. Co. offer to sell out for $50,000, I taking 2/5 of it—& come up here & talk with me about it” [NB 46 TS 21]. Note: telegram not extant.
July 8 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok. “Photographs ‘with practically no text’ are in my line. But I reckon you’ll have to come up onto this hilltop if the thing is urgent, for I shall be here stiddy for the next 6 weeks” [MTP].
July 9 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “No answer from Jacobs. Robt. Collier telegraphs he can’t come till next week. / Wrote details to Mr. Rogers of my project to have Colliers buy out Am. Pub. Co” [NB 46 TS 21]. Note: Collier’s telegram not extant.
July 10 Friday – Livy wrote to daughter Clara “about her admiration for [Louis] Agassiz’s fortitude in facing the prospect of blindness when he was a young man; he practiced the study of fossils by touch alone so that he would not be forced to give up his career [Gribben 12: MTP].
Sam’s notebook: “Telegraphed Collier he better get definite 10 day option to purchase from Bliss & stop any farming-out projects / The week with the Gov. Gen. of Canada” [NB 46 TS 21].
July 11 Saturday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Hélène Elisabeth Picard.
“I thank you, with enthusiasm, for the moving & beautiful Joan pictures. They are a delight to the eye & an exaltation to the spirit. Thank you again!”
Sam then related the trip from Riverdale to Elmira and gave Livy’s status since arriving:
July 12 Sunday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Samuel M. Bergheim, director of the Plasmon Syndicate, London. The letter is not extant but referred to in Bergheim’s July 29 reply.
July 14 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Daniel Willard Fiske, who had replied to Sam’s request for a villa near Florence. Fiske’s reply is not extant. Sam thanked Fiske and Mr. George Gregory Smith for their efforts, but was in a quandary over a choice between Villa Papiniano, and the one recommended by Mrs.
July 15 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Wrote Sears I couldn’t do a Xmas story for Harper’s Weekly—no literary impulses in stock. / [Horiz. Line separator] / Collier has secured a purchase-option from Am. Pub. Co.” [NB 46 TS 21]. Note: Hamblen Sears was on the staff of Harper’s Weekly; see June 16, 1902 article on the Booksellers’ luncheon.
July 16 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Bok’s photograph[er] is to come to-day or to-morrow. By appointment” [NB 46 TS 21]. Note: see Sept. 1 to Bok.
July 17 Friday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok.
The pictures of this place, which has been our summer home for more than a generation, are finished, & Mr. Marr has just gone. Here we shall remain until we sail for Italy toward the end of October.
July 18 Saturday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y.: Sam’s notebook: “Sent cable / ROZIER, Florence, Italy. Please take Papiniano a year—put business in lawyers hands. / Clemens” [NB 46 TS 21]. Note: cable not extant.
Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok.
Please strike out the words about John T. Lewis which state that before the war he was a slave. Merely strike OUT—nothing need be inserted. I always supposed he had been a slave, but it turns out that this was a mistake.
… [over]
July 19 Sunday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Daniel Willard Fiske with the results of his “Long-distance house-hunting ”and sailing plans.
Dear Professor Fiske: / You did us a great kindness when you furnished us Mr. Gregory Smith to lean on. He has stood the strain handsomely, & we look forward to thanking both of you in person in November.
July 20 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “I think Tabitha Greening’s pension ($10 a month) is paid, up to Sept. 1. Today sent $100 to Molly Clemens to pay it with, from Oct 1, to July 31, 1904” [NB 46 TS 22]. Note: Sam’s childhood friend, “Puss” Quarles (Tabitha Greening).
July 21 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote a letter of introduction for George Daulton to the following gentlemen: Richard Watson Gilder, Henry M. Alden, George B. Harvey, Samuel S. McClure, John Brisben Walker, Walter Hines Page, Edward W. Bok, and Robert J. Collier.
July 22 Wednesday – In Kittery Point, Maine William Dean Howells wrote to Sam, needling him about a book lent.
July 23 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Harper—note about Tom Sawyer renewal of copyright (completing it) Sent it to Robert Collier” [NB 46 TS 22].
July 25 Saturday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells.
July 26 Sunday – Jean Clemens’ 23rd birthday. Sam inscribed a copy of Antonio Fogazzaro’s Il Mestero del Poeta: “To Jean Clemens on a Birthday. July 26th, 1903” [MTP: Howard S. Mott Inc. catalog, No. 177, Item 72. Also, Gribben 235].
July 27 Monday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to James Whitcomb Riley in Indianapolis, Ind. “The delightful book has arrived, & it is as you say on the fly-leaf:—in it I do find friends of Huck’s & Tom’s, ‘and pards of theirs of Long Ago.’ Thank you cordially, dear old friend, & may we yet meet again!” [MTP]. Note: likely The Book of Joyous Children (1902). The American Monthly Review of Reviews July 1902, Vol.
July 28 Tuesday – Daniel Willard Fiske wrote from Copenhagen to Sam after having rec’d Sam’s “note of the 14th, belated by its journey around by Florence.” Fiske answered Sam’s questions about the Villa Maiano and the Villa Papiniano, and of Fiske’s gout, which seemed to “thrive as well in the North as in the South” [MTP].
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
894 Clara Clemens 1.42 Lincoln National Bank
July 29 Wednesday – Samuel M. Bergheim for the Plasmon Syndicate wrote to Sam, having rec’d his letter of July 12 (not extant). He had been laid up or would have answered earlier. “I think you ought to bring the matter you tell me about before the Board of Directors. I think you should write them a strong letter, and put in a claim for the shares which you should have had, and which have evidently been kept back. I should not believe all that Wright says, but still, you might make this statement to the Board as made to you by Mr.
July 30 Thursday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to George W. Reeves, real estate agent for Hoyt & Co., N.Y.
I return the interview. It is the usual thing—made up out of whole cloth by the bastard son of a prostitute who wrote it.
I enclose receipt for $200—Mr. Gardiner’s third rent-payment.
August – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam inscribed his photograph with an aphorism to an unidentified person: “It is never too late to mend. There is no hurry. / Truly Your friend / Mark Twain ‘ New York, August 1908” [MTP].
August or September – In N.Y.C. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Elmira.
Dear Ben, I expect to beat this letter home, but I don’t know yet.
August 1 Saturday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, enclosing the July 30 from his nephew, Samuel E. Moffett, which asked for a seconding nomination for Mary E. Moffett for membership in the National Arts Club.