August 13 Tuesday – On Rogers’ yacht Kanawha Sam wrote from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Livy.
There is nothing to say, dearheart, except that I love you. So I will say that, & repeat it, then go ashore with the gang & take a drive—for the fog is still prevailing outside the harbor, & will continue to do it until the wind changes—if that ever happens.
August 13 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to Charles S. Fairchild’s Aug. 10 inquiry about the 14 W. 10th house for rent. It was “well enough, for a dam’d old rack-heap,” but he disdained the agent, “Something S. Brown,” whom he thought dishonest, and the owners, who were in Paris and who had left “one of the Christliest book-heaps” he knew of in the house [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers about the crisis of the prior day for Livy (see entry) and included.
August 13 Thursday – One of Sam’s notes to his invalid wife inform us of his activities this day at the funeral of William E. Dodge, Jr. (1832-1903), Riverdale neighbor, who died at age 71 on Aug. 9 in Bar Harbor, Maine. The funeral was held at the Presbyterian Church in Riverside at 10:30 a.m. Sam’s note, on or just after this day:
August 14 Wednesday – On Rogers’ yacht Kanawha en route from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Bar Harbor, Maine, Sam wrote two letters to Livy. Sam’s first letter puts him at sea, his second at Bass’s Bay near Bar Harbor.
August 14 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to the Denver Post’s Aug. 12 telegraph.
Your telegram reached me (per post) from “York Village” (which is a short brickbat throw from my house) yesterday afternoon when it was 30 hours old. And yet, in my experience, that was not only abnormally quick work for telegraph company to do, but abnormally intelligent work for that kind of mummy to be whirling off out of its alleged mind.
August 15 Thursday – The Kanawha stopped in Rockland, Maine, 40 miles n. of Bath [MTHHR 468n1].
Sam’s Ship log: August 15, Thursday. Bass’s Bay.
Fog.
August 15 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
August 15 Saturday – Margaret M. (not further identified), an 11-year-old girl wrote from Portland, Ore to Sam, a letter of admiration for his works [MTP].
August 16 Friday – The Kanawha was nearing Bath, Maine at noon on its return leg to N.Y.C. when Sam wrote to Livy. The letter was postmarked Aug. 17 from Bath.
August 16 Sunday – In N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Samuel Merwin. “Dear Mr. Merwin,—What you have said has given me deep pleasure—indeed I think no words could be said that could give me more” [MTP: MTLP 744].
August 17 Saturday – The Kanawha stopped in Portland, Maine where Thomas B. Reed disembarked.
Then it sailed directly for N.Y.C. [MTHHR 468 n1].
Sam’s log: August 17, Saturday.
Sailed early.
August 17 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine: Sam’s notebook: “Sue starts a.m.” [NB 45 TS 23]. Note: Sue Crane, to nurse Livy.
August 18 Sunday – The Kanawha arrived in New York City.
Sam’s last entry in his log: (insert drawn by Harry Rogers 1901)
New York. Cast anchor off the Recreation Dock in the evening. A final search for the umbrella produced nothing, except regret.
August 18 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine: Sam’s notebook: “Sue due here 11.45 a.m. At 9 this morning, Jervis handed in a telegram to Boston to say he & Sue would arrive here at 11.45—which they did. 2 hours later (at 1.45) the telegram reached me! It had then been in the York Harbor office one hour & a half (since 12.14. B. to Y.H. 4 ¾ hours by telegraph. / Chg 25 for deliver. / Don’t divulge its leaving-time” [NB 45 TS 23].
August 18 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Had to go to New York / [Horiz. Line separator] / 1896-1903” [NB 46 TS 23].
Mark Bennett of the World’s Fair 1904 wrote to Sam.
I hope you have a soft spot in your heart for Hank Monk, and all that pertains to him. It could hardly be otherwise when we consider how many millions of your readers in all parts of the world feel that they had a personal acquaintance with the man that Mark Twain made famous.
August 19 Monday – The estimated date of the Kanawha’s arrival in N.Y.C. Sam’s Aug. 16 to Livy expressed hope that he would find a letter from her at the Grosvenor Hotel. He spent one night there and took a delayed trip back to Saranac Lake the next day, Aug. 20.
August 19 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Col. [Harvey] sprung the ’95 contract—I had never heard of it before” [NB 46 TS 23].
August – Budd writes that Sam’s article “The United States of Lyncherdom” first published in Europe and Elsewhere (1923) was “written in August 1901” [Collected 2: 1006]. Note: J. Kaplan and others write that Sam was motivated by the Aug. 19 race riot and lynching of three Negro men in Pierce City, Mo. Some 300 blacks were chased into the woods during the riot [364]. This suggests that Sam wrote the piece after Aug. 19, but the Century Co. sent at least one packet of newspaper clippings on lynchings, lynch mobs, and courageous sherrif on June 19.
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 2 Friday – At 3 p.m. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote from Rogers’ office to Livy in Lake Saranac, N.Y.
August 2 Saturday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Charles Bancroft Dillingham.
There is one change which will be best made before the serious work of revising the play & trimming & compressing it is begun—a change which I thought of when you were here, but which did not then seem really important—but the more I think of it more I perceive that it is important.
August 20 Tuesday – Sam left N.Y.C. in the a.m. for his return to the family at Saranac Lake, N.Y. His Aug. 23 to Rogers shows the trip took him 17 hours, arriving at 1 a.m. on Aug. 21, and that he spent “a couple of days in bed” with a cold, or, Aug. 21 and 22. On the 27th he wrote Miss O’Reilly that he’d “been Ill since my return until now.”
August 20 Wednesday – About this day H.H. Rogers made a quick visit to Sam at York Harbor [Aug 21 to Rogers].
August 20 Thursday – On Sept. 1 Sam wrote Joe Twichell that he was “in New York the whole month under wearing & hateful compulsion of business & the races were a blessed rest & diversion for me” [MTP]. Note: This may explain the lack of letters extant this month from him. The International Yacht Races began on Aug. 20. See insert advertisement.
August 21 Wednesday – Sam arrived at Saranac Lake at 1 a.m. and spent this day and the next two days in bed fighting off “a cold in the head” [Aug. 23 to Rogers].