The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day

April 13 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: My hands are full and my outlet for superfluous emotions just now is my Boyagians and their “something junk”. They have thrown at me such delightful things. A marvel of a huge strange old candlestick for 50¢. Mother and I have sat around it and wondered what it’s history must be.

Mr. and Mrs. Twichell arrived and I’m so tired—so tired. They are nice and dear, but killingly hard to entertain, for Mr. Twichell’s deafness is increasing [MTP TS 52].

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 13 Tuesday — In the evening Sam attended daughter Clara’s concert at Mendelssohn Hall, NYC. The New York Times, Apr. 14, p.11, gave her performance mixed reviews, as did other city papers. One unnamed paper follows the Times report:

MISS CLARA CLEMENS SINGS.

Mark Twain’s Daughter Heard at Recital with Miss Littlehales.

April 14 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “At the meeting of the Copyright League yesterday [Apr. 13], Mr. Clemens stayed long enough to hear Mr. Solberg’s suggestion for a mixed Copyright Commission of authors[,] artists, publishers etc. discussed & accepted. The Commission will recommend extension of Copyright limit” [MTP TS 13].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “The Publisher’s League was to[o] much today”[ibid.].

At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Edward Everett Hale.

April 14 Saturday – Four autographed notes by Clemens on a four-page letter by an unspecified reporter of the NY Times, requesting his opinion on Maxim Gorky’s trip to America to raise funds in the cause of Russian emancipation. Sam refused to be interviewed but answered written questions with written answers, with the priviso that they would be printed verbatim, if at all.  Two of the notes follow:

April 14 Sunday – With William Dean Howells and Daniel Frohman and 800 children, Sam attended a matinee performance of P&P by The Educational Alliance, Children’s Theatre, N.Y.C.  and gave a curtain speech. The New York Times, p.9, “Mark Twain Tells of Being an Actor” reported:  

MARK TWAIN TELLS OF BEING AN ACTOR

He Sees His Own “The Prince and the Pauper,” and Relates Story of 22 Years Ago.

——— ——— ———

STAGE SPEECH CUT SHORT

He Managed to Narrate, However,

April 14 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer.

Dear Margaret, we arrived from Bermuda yesterday afternoon, & in the accumulation of letters I find yours of a fortnight ago. I’ve brought the little angel-fish pin—badge of my Aquarium— & will keep it for you till you come, which I hope will be as soon as Miss Tewksbury can escort you. Come VERY soon!

April 14 Wednesday — Sam spent part of the day in NYC; likely he spent the night of Apr. 13 with the H.H. Rogers family. He recorded a talk with Ashcroft that took place on this day:

April 14 Thursday — Sam arrived back in New York aboard the Oceana. The New York Times, p. 6, Apr. 15, reported his feeble health:

MARK TWAIN BACK IN FEEBLE HEALTH

Distinguished Author Returns from Bermuda in Weakened State from Heart Trouble.

CARRIED OFF THE STEAMER

Physicians Meet Him and He is Taken Immediately to His Home at Redding, Conn.

April 15 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Mother and I saw Lilian Griffin for a moment in at Cecchina’s at 6:30. Walter has lost his position as instructor at the Art School in Hartford. Mother and I couldn’t get seats at Cecchina’s so we went around to the “Griffoni” and had such a bad dinner. Then we went up to Proctor’s show house to see Henry Lee impersonate Mark Twain. Very bad it was [MTP: TS 51]. See insert for Henry Lee

April 15 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied with an aphorism to Carolyn Wells: “It is easier for a needle to go through a camel’s eye than for a rich woman to sprain her ancle & keep it out of the papers. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / April 15, 1906 / With greetings & good wishes to Carolyn Wells” [MTP].

The New York Times ran a front-page scandal story involving Maxim Gorky; Mark Twain’s remarks on helping Russia were included:

GORKY AND ACTRESS ASKED TO QUIT HOTELS

She Is Not Mme. Gorky, Though He Calls Her So.

April 15 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Twichells go” [MTP TS 53].

Frederick D. Evans wrote from Fort McDowell, Calif. to Sam being bothered by a statement Sam made in “Concerning the Jews”some four years before, he thought in Harper’s Magazine. “That you had no prejudice against any nationality—save one. / What is that one?” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Quote the paragraph / no recollection / explain it if he can”

April 15 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Apr. 14 of  Margaret Blackmer.

I have your letter of yesterday, & you are a very dear Margaret, & have given me great pleasure. Now as I cipher it you are to go away with your papa Thursday the 16th (to-morrow) & will return on or “about” the 23d.

April 15. Thursday — Sam noted in his after Sept. 25, 1909 letter that on this day, “The Lioness abolished.” In his L-A MS “‘letter to Howells” he gave particulars:

On the 15 I gave Miss Lyon a month’s notice—sent it to her room by a maid. In the forenoon. Claude [Benchotte] (butler) arrived at noon. In the afternoon Miss Lyon sent me her reply by a maid. She had been married about a month, but was still called by her unwedded name, & she was still using it herself, & so it came natural to her to sign the present note in that way.

April 15 Friday — The New York Times, p. 1, Apr. 16, datelined Redding Apr. 15, did a follow up article on Sam:

MARK TWAIN HOLDS HIS OWN.

Passes a Comfortable Day—Country Air Has Good Effect.

REDDING, Conn., April 15.—Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) who arrived at his country home here last evening, fatigued from his long journey from Bermuda, and very ill, passed a comfortable day with no appreciable change in his condition and was holding his own pretty well. A second nurse arrived today.

April 16 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Miss Mary Foote lunched here” [MTP: TS 51]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Sent word to Postman in Dublin N.H. to keep mail for Mr.Clemens. / Mr. Clemens read 40 pages of the Admiral Story MS. this evening—”[MTP TS 14].

April 16 Monday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Nikolai V. Chaikovsky. “Mr. C asks me to write for him and say that he is not going to take any public notice of the man Spiridovitch. He is not too troubled about the matter” [MTP]. Note: Alexander Spiridovitch (1873-1952), Russian police general. In 1906 Spiridovitch was assigned to a detail guarding the residences of Czar Nicholas II.

April 16 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam gave instructions to Lyon for reply to Mark G. McElhinney’s Apr. 3. “Thank him for his letter & say that by & by when his philosophy is printed he will send him a confidential copy” [MTP].

Sam also replied by writing on Dr. Edward Anthondy Spitzka’s Apr. 10. “Well, I read the other one, & got some thing out of it for the C. S. book. Glad to have it. Life’s getting a little dull lately, & nothing excites me like the encephalic” [MTP].

April 16 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J. Thursday night.

Friday—Saturday—Sunday—Monday—then you are here! Monday afternoon. About half-past 2, I suppose. Well, I shall be on the lookout, & powerful glad to see you. Shan’t we have good times? I do most confidently guess so.

In Bermuda I bought a trinket for your Christmas. But I can’t keep it that long, I’ll give it to you now.

April 16 Friday — Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.

April 16 Saturday — Andrew Carnegie wrote from NYC to Sam: “So glad you are reported better this morning gives me hopes you are to weather the storm & be spared to us a while longer—so be it....When you get real chatty again if you can not come down I’d like to make a pilgrimage to your shrine just to get a few sniffs of a real genuine work a day saint...” [MTP].

April 17 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Col. Harvey dined here. To look at Col. Harvey you’d never think that he was a man with a literary appreciation or that he could talk—but he can and he gave us a very nice dinner party. Then Jean and I left Mr. Clemens and him while we came up to our rooms [MTP: TS 51].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: Treatment. Paid. [Swedish Count C. Lewenhaupt gave Sam osteopathic treatments.]

Mr. Clemens went to the Italian Consul to sign a paper enabling Ingegnere Zannoni to act as his representative in the Villa di Quarto case.

April 17 Tuesday – Sam wrote to an unidentified person about Benjamin Chapin, who performed on stage as Abraham Lincoln. This letter appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Apr. 22, 1906 in “Lincoln Lives in Ohio Actor.” 

April 17 Wednesday – Sam’s A.D. of one year later noted the anniversary: “a fortunate day, a golden day, and my heart has never been empty of grandchildren since.” Cooley writes: