To The Person Sitting in Darkness: Day By Day

October 28 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “MEAT EXTRACT / London Syndicate ought to add £100,000 themselves & make a Co of £100,000 with a cash working capital of £70,000, payable in 25% instalments as required” [NB 43 TS 27].

October 28 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “This, or later, preside at Low Speech. Delafield dinner” [NB 44 TS 15]. Note: rally speech made on Oct. 29. Also, possibly Richard Delafield (1853-1930), banker and Merchant, resident of Tuxedo Park.

In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. Only the envelope survives [MTP].

Thomas B. Reed, who had taken up the case of R.G. Newbegin Co. and W.I. Squire, wrote to Sam:

October 28 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y., Livy was well enough to sit outdoors for an hour without any negative consequences [Crane to Sewall Oct. 31].

Sam’s notebook: “3.30, Theodore Stanton” [NB 45 TS 32]. Note: Theodore Weld Stanton, son of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist. See Nov. 17, 1901; Stanton had tried to locate Sam’s “Napoleon” mountain in France.

October 28 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Youth in smoking-chapel talking nursery-German in loud voice to be heard and envied of men. ‘Obber’—the old familiar simple words of the text-book vocabulary uttered with painful distinctness. Yet there are those who say there is no hell. ‘Etw’ss’ (etwas)” [NB 46 TS 28]

October 29 Monday 

October 29 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Introduce Seth Low to audience at 350 Broadway, noon” [NB 44 TS 16].

Mark Twain spoke at a noonday rally for the Fusion ticket at the New York Life Building in support of mayoral candidate, Seth Low. The New York Times covered the event on p. 3, Oct. 30 edition:

MARK TWAIN AND SETH LOW SPEAK

———

The Humorist Compares Tammany to a Rotten Banana.

———

October 29 Wednesday – J. Smither Jackson wrote from Surrey, England to Sam, asking for a few details about Mark Twain’s works: date of the first book published; total number published; which has had the longest circulation; did any of them concern Sam’s personal travels? Which did he consider his finest work; and where could he obtain a “good cabinet portrait of” Twain? [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “A curiosity / No Answer.”

October 29 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “2 men—a giant & a dwarf—Shet pony & giraffe 6 ft 4 in—tramped the deck after midnight, talking loudly. On the portside 4 sat under Mrs. Miller’s open ports & told unclean anecdotes (in the national yell, swore, laughed like demons, & sang. The Captain is going to prevent these freedoms after 11.30 hearafter” [NB 46 TS 28].

October 3 Thursday – At 8 a.m. Clemens, Joe Twichell, and possibly others met at the foot of West 35th Street, and boarded the Kanawha. H.H. Rogers may have already been on board. The yacht cruised off of Sandy Hook, N.J. to view the heat of the America’s Cup race, which had been thought to be the third in the best of five, but was the second. The heat this day began at 11 a.m. and finished at 3:16 p.m. [NY Times, Oct.

October 3 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to William Dean Howells.

It is a charming book, & perfectly true. It ought to reproach me, for I am making Huck Finn tell things that are perfectly true, this last week or two. They are true, but with that qualification: he exaggerates; you don’t. Still, I have to keep him as he was, & he was an exaggeration from the beginning.

October 3 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Monday we leave for New York. Oct. 24 we sail for Italy. To-day I placed flowers on Susy’s grave—for the last time probably—& read words / ‘Good-night, dear heart / good-night’” [NB 46 TS 25; MTB 1206]. Note: entry boxed.

October 30 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “See Chas. Frohman / or Rosenfeld 289 4th ave. / Write Sraus on Authors Club. / See Metro bank & leave check & signatures” [NB 43 TS 28]. Note: a collaboration between Sydney Rosenfeld and Mark Twain on a comedy play had been initiated in Vienna on Apr. 22, 1898, and a meeting took place on Oct. 22 of this year between Charles Frohman, Rosenfeld, and Twain.

October 30 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook records a to-do list, some items crossed off as if completed:

3 seats orchestra, not further back than 6th row or 1st or second row of balcony to-morrow night

money.

Shaving soap.

Spectacles to Gildre

Miss Marborough

Bram Stoker 783 Mad. Av.

Mrs. Rogers

Post cards & envelopes.

Write Am. Exp. Portrait.

Harpers.

October 30 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a postcard to the North American Review that he had mailed all three installments of “Christian Science” [MTP]. Note: he also noted it below:

October 30 Friday – The Clemens family was at sea on the Princess Irene en route for Genoa, Italy.

Sam’s notebook:

Oct. 30. Refer to it. There should be no first-come take choice in location of chairs. The chair-space outside a stateroom shd be the property of the occupant. People under our ports chatter till 11—if these were our chairs we could have tranquillity, for we retire at 9.30.

October 31 Wednesday – At the Hotel Earlington in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Channing H. Cook. “Dr. Cook / General Manager: / I discover no error in the remarks concerning Plasmon. They are as I worded them” [MTP]. Note: this was included in Sam’s Oct. 31 to MacAlister (below) “to be presently distributed as an ad.”

Sam also wrote to John Y. MacAlister, transcribing the note to Cook (above):

This following is to precede a brief interview concerning Plasmon, to be presently distributed as an ad.

October 31 Thursday – Sam’s notebook entry of Oct. 30 gives the following evening for reservations of three seasts for “orchestra.” The venue was not determined [NB 44 TS 16].

The New York Tribune, p. 3, ran “Twain Would Be a Bill Poster!”—a similar article to the NY Times article (see under Oct. 30) [MTCI 410-11].

October 31 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y.: Sam’s notebook: “(See Sept. 28.) Jean’s last faint was July 31—92 days without an attack: 13 weeks. (See Oct. 9. also.) ” [NB 45 TS 32].

Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.

October 31 Saturday – The Clemens family was at sea on the Princess Irene en route for Genoa, Italy.

Sam’s notebook: “ For a whole blessed week no Sam Parks, no Bill Devery, no strikes, no news.” [NB 46 TS 26]. Note: Boxed entry. Bill Delivery.

Harper & Brothers sent Clemens a Oct. 31 statement showing $1,854.48 royalties due for single book sales (not sets) [1903 Financials file MTP].

October 4 Friday – Sam and the passengers on the Kanawha watched as Columbia beat Shamrock II in the best of five races, winning heat No. 3 for a 3-0 victory and defense of the Cup. In each race:

Sept. 28, 1st race, 30 miles, Windward-Leeward Course: Columbia beat Shamrock II by 01 minute 20 sec in corrected time.

October 4 Saturday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore asking for a “supply of lecture-declinations”; he advised they wouldn’t be able to “get away for two or three weeks—the improvement [in Livy] is very slow” [MTP].

October 4 Sunday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam wrote to Henry W. Lucy.

My dear Lucy—Your letter went to Hartford and thereby lost a couple of days, arriving in this remote corner only to-day. Still, I may possibly be able to catch you with a word of welcome before you sail. But I can hardly hope for the good luck of seeing you, for we go on board our ship (bound for Italy) the evening of October 23rd, and your ship will come in next day, after we shall have sailed.

October 5 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mr. Osborne (not further identified): “Indeed I should very much like to see that institution, but I have settled down, now, to stir from under the rooftree no more forever—at least for a year or two, I hope. / Won’t you send me another copy of the pamphlet? I hadn’t read three pages of it before some one carried it off. I was thoroughly interested” [MTP].

October 5 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine: Sam’s notebook: “Sent winter-fuel letter (Secy Treasury) to Duneka for Weekly” [NB 45 TS 29]. Note: see the letter in Oct. 3, 1901 entry—there is some doubt about when it was actually written.

October 5 Monday – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam added a P.S. to his Oct. 2 to James Barnes.

“P.S. Oct. 5. It is all right! The book has this moment arrived, & I thank you again” [MTP]. Note: Gribben gives (1866-1936) for Barnes and lists four books, but only one prior to 1905, The Son of Light Horse Harry (1904) Harpers; this may be an early release of the book, but why it would have to be sent from Brazil is not clear [48].