The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day

August 21 Monday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam added a PS to his Aug. 20 to Isabel V. Lyon. They must have mailed it back and forth between Norfolk and Dublin: 

August 21 Tuesday – “Tuesday night [Aug. 21] there was a very bright play by a lad of 18, & it was done in exceedingly good style by a dozen lads & lassies, none them older than the author” [Aug. 28 to Mary Rogers].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Here is a day I wonder about. / Jean, 10:00 in my study” [MTP TS 109].

August 21 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Aug. 17, 18, 19 to Dorothy Quick.

The Busy Bee

August 21 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The day was a placid one. We played Hearts, and then more Hearts” [MTP: IVL TS 61].

Charles W. Birge wrote from the Fitch Home for Soldiers in Noroton Heights, Conn. to ask Sam if he’d be some help to him in securing a cheap pair of spectacles to help him read; he could get a pair for $2 in Stamford. At age 72, Birge had a shaky hand [MTP]. Note: IVL: “No ans.”

Joe Goodman wrote from Alameda, Calif. about locating old letters from Clemens.

August 22 Monday – By this day Sam had returned to Lee, Mass. where he wrote to Susan Crane.

Susy dear, you are right: put just the dates, as you suggest—or, add “Florence, Italy” to the “June 5, 1904”— for there is a deep pathos in that far-from-home-&-friends in the simple mention of that beyond-ocean name.

August 22 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Aug. 17 to 21 to Dorothy Quick. “Thursday, 22. I’m collecting red cigar-belts for you against your coming—but I love you notwithstanding”  [MTAq 54].

Sam also wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson in Staten Island, N.Y.: “I am very glad, my dear Miss T. to learn that the option has been paid at last; & since you as desire, you can send your check for the small advance I made you, but do not do it if it can inconvenience you, for there is no hurry” [MTP].

August 22 Saturday – Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Z. S. Freeman New York City       “ [August] 22-24 [Zoheth S. Freeman]

      Note: not in the original guestbook.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I went to N.Y. on the 8:15. Back on the 1:27 and Zoe Freeman came too. It was torrenting when I went to the station, and the flood gates [sentence unfinished] [MTP: IVL TS 61].

August 23 ca. – In Dublin, N.H., Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to Frederic Chapin’s Aug. 19 inquiries concerning P&P dramatic rights. At the top of Chapin’s letter, she wrote: “If there is any legal complication it arises out of an affair of ten years ago & Dan. Frohman knows all about it. Please apply to him, for Mr. Clemens is unable to do so.” On the back side page one of Chapin’s letter, she wrote: “Miss Marbury will be Mr.

August 23 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We went over to the Deacon’s for tea this afternoon. This is the 2nd Friday that she has had a “bridge party” and we have been bidden for tea.

August 23 Sunday – Zoheth S. Freeman was visiting Sam in Redding [new guestbook].

August 24 Thursday – Richard McCloud, attorney in Durango, Colo. wrote to Sam about a pamphlet never published which was to have contained a letter by Sam published in the Mar. 18, 1876 Hartford Courant and later in one of Sam’s books—could he say where he might find it? [MTP]. Note: written by ? in pencil at the top “Vol. 20 of Hillcrest Edition p.438”

August 24 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Dentist—a new gentile tooth. / The King returned this evening. He came in gay & jolly & darling, & full of his yachting trip to Bar Harbor & Mrs. Harry, & the joy of living. Sly, he was, & like a boy fresh from his wild oats” [MTP TS 109].

Frank N. Doubleday wrote to Sam announcing “Two copies of #11 &12 of THE BOOK go to you by express today.” He hadn’t heard back about the “fine bindings on the first 10 copies” of “What is Man?”

August 24 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Lucia Hull came this morning to have a chat with the King and he kept her until luncheon time, talking his gospel to her. She held to her own philosophy like the staunch little maid that she is and she stayed to luncheon at my invitation and then we jiggered over to her house to see her mother… [MTP 92].

August 24 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  Zoe and Margery left today. The King seems to improve with every day. Paine who came up for billiards remarked that the King doesn’t play as good a game as he did. But that is clearly understandable, for the King has been teaching the game to young strong men, who now are playing as well as he does, and better, for many of them have had instruction from experts in “draw shots” and “English” etc. and have no more wit than to come here and to tell the King how to make his shots.

August 24 Tuesday — In his Lyon-Ashcroft MS Clemens wrote on Aug. 25 of this day:

August 25 Thursday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote on Plasmon Co. letterhead to Sam, now in Great Neck, Long Island at the home of Urban H. Broughton.

August 25 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Dear Col. Higginson walked up this afternoon and had a cup of tea with me. He really came to inquire about Jean’s accident. So that is how I’ve learned about it. He talked of Mr. Clemens of course, and said that the description of the feud in Huckleberry Finn is one of the finest things in literature. He always feels that he has known those people. …I sat in my own room over my tea when I saw him coming slowly up the road. I was reading his essay on Bronson Alcott, as he came into view. … [MTP TS 90].

August 25 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells.

Dear ’Owells: / If it were my own case I should probably stand upon my innocence, & go on & publish my story “regardless”; but you are not me, & so it is different. You are better, & finer than I am, & it costs you many a pang that I escape.

August 25 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam went to a luncheon and talked for two hours, as related by the following letter to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.  

August 25 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to H.J. Learoyd, Managing Editor of the N.Y. Evening Post, heading the note “Private.”

August 25 Wednesday — William Dean Howells wrote from Carlsbad, Austria to Sam.

Dear Clemens: / Your friendly letter of prevention found me already taking quarts of cure, here. I hated abominably to come, but doctors and dear ones of all ages and sexes joined in thrusting me away. Surgeons suggested prying me open with cutlasses, and painted the process in glowing colors. But the next time I have bilious colic that ties me up in a double bow-knot I will get an osteopath to untangle me.

August 26 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam added to his Aug. 25 to Mary B. Rogers 

Sunday, noon.