August 10, 1905 Thursday
August 10 Thursday – Sam left Dublin for Boston and Norfolk, Conn. to visit daughter Clara. F. Kaplan adds he stopped over in Hartford. No further record of the stop was found [622].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Mr. Clemens went away today. Norfolk, Conn, to see Clara. It is hot and I have just discovered that the train between here and Boston stops at ever so many stations, or I’m afraid it does, and Mr. Clemens dreads, hates and remembers with horror a railway journey.
August 12, 1905 Saturday
August 12 Saturday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam was ailing from gout [NY Times, Aug. 20, p.7, “Mark Twain Ill of Gout”] Note: Source puts onset of attack to this day.
August 13, 1905 Sunday
August 13 Sunday – Sam was in Norfolk, Conn. ailing from gout [Aug. 14 to Rogers].

In Dublin, N.H. Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “Jean has been droopy and sad all day. We took a rug and some books and went up into the woods, and I read a delightful article on Carlyle and Newman. Tonight Jean is dining with Mr. and Mrs. Sumner” [MTP TS 88].

Albert R. Halley wrote from Nashville, Tenn. to ask Sam if he would write an introduction for Halley’s book A History of the Divine Comedy [MTP]. Note: not in Gribben.
August 14, 1905 Monday
August 14 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Roi Cooper Megrue. Lyon noted that Sam was out of town but that in June he wrote M. Worth Colwell, referring him to Elisabeth Marbury—whatever arrangements she made would satisfy him [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Choisey [her home in Conn.] is rented to Mr. Bushnell, $20 a month. There seems a chance for me to begin to get financially square with the world. Oh, world” [MTP TS 88]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Today word came that Mr. Clemens has gout” [MTP TS 25].
August 15, 1905 Tuesday
August 15 Tuesday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.

I can say only a word. You & Johnson are the only organizers I am acquainted with: won’t you get up a Jerome petition & have all our fellow craftsmen sign it, & add “Mark Twain” to the list —in a large & legible hand?

Love to you all.
August 16, 1905 Wednesday
August 16 Wednesday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam wrote to Isabel V. Lyon.

I go to Fairhaven to-morrow for a day or two. Please look at Kipling’s account of his visit to me at Susy Crane’s farm, & see if Mrs. Clemens as well as Susy Clemens was present. Mrs. Laura M. Dake has not yet written. Suppose you telephone the bank & ask if that check has been collected.
August 17, 1905 Thursday
August 17 Thursday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam started a letter marked Private to Joe Twichell that he finished on Feb. 19:
August 18, 1905 Friday

August 18 Friday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote on Koy-Lo Co. letterhead to Sam, giving him an update on the lawsuit involving the Plasmon Co. of America, and asking for an additional $150 to pay attorney Baldwin for increased legal fees to contest an appeal by their opponents [MTP]. Note: Ashcroft was Secretary and Treasurer of the Co. at this time, which is how he met Sam. He would later become Sam’s secretary and accompany him to London in 1907. Sam was still in Norfolk, Conn. On or about Aug. 31 he would direct Isabel Lyon to send the $150. See entries: Dec. 1901, Mar.

August 19, 1905 Saturday
August 19 Saturday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam finished his Aug. 17 to Joe Twichell:

P.S. 19th. Your letter arrived from Dublin yesterday evening. It gave me great pleasure, although it was a breach of the prohibition.

I am still in bed—it is the sixth day, but seems the 40th—& there is no immediate prospect of my getting on my feet. However, “prospects” go for nothing in gout, I may be on my feet in three days.
August 20, 1905 Sunday

August 20 Sunday – In Norfolk, Conn. Sam began a letter to Isabel V. Lyon that he added a PS to on Aug. 21, this about the rent payment needed by Renwick on 21 Fifth Ave., since a new heating system had been installed. “If you need money, get it of Miss Harrison. Send Renwick the money, & a word hoping he is well” [MTP].

August 21, 1905 Monday
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: Monday, Aug. 21. / P.S. I expect to be able to leave for New York next Thursday or Friday; thence to Fairhaven for a day or two. But I am still in bed. [in IVL’s hand:] The amount of the check to M . Renwick is $875 . Rent for June, July & August. 01 [in SLC’s hand:]Yes, that is my idea of it [MTP].

Sam also wrote to George B. Harvey.
August 22, 1905 Tuesday
August 22 Tuesday – Sam left Boston and returned to Dublin, N.H. [Aug. 21 to Rogers].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The children had a frantic game of ‘Wooly, Wooly Wolf,’ and stayed for dinner” [MTP TS 89]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Today Dr. Henderson & Mr. Stewart [Stuart] Montgomery rode over from Chesham to call on Mr. Clemens” [MTP TS 26]. Note: Ernest Flagg Henderson (1860-1928), historian.
August 23, 1905 Wednesday
August 23 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
August 24, 1905 Thursday

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 25, 1905 Friday

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 26, 1905 Saturday
August 26 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

A letter from Charlotte Porter. Yesterday Col. Higginson asked me what news of the Dublin article and when I told him how I had heard from Miss Norma K. Bright who hopes I’ll write the article, I had to tell him that I feel my limitations so keenly and he said “Overcome them, your opportunity is here.” He is strong and the truth is in him. His book “Contemporaries” is delightful. Oh, such English, and appreciation of it in others [MTP TS 91]. Note: Norma Kathryn Bright (b. 1883), writer and poet for Book News.
August 28, 1905 Monday
August 28 Monday – At Boston, Mass. Sam wrote to daughter Clara still recovering in Norfolk, Conn.

I arrived unfatigued, and with my lameness almost gone. I have had my hair cut, have sent a telegram to Jean; shall take a bath, now, and be in bed in a few minutes or more. In spite of the gout I had a most delightful visit with you—entirely delightful. You look extravagantly pretty and sweet to-day—you were the decoration of that lunch table.

With lots of love, … [MTP]. Note: telegram not extant.

Isabel Lyon’s Journal:
August 29, 1905 Tuesday
August 29 Tuesday – Sam left Boston on an early train to Dublin, N.H., about a three-hour trip.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens arrived today, from Norfolk, quite white and showing the traces of his suffering. After his lunch he went wearily, wearily to his bed, and he slept. He is so good. This evening a telegram [not extant] came from Mr. Tayler of the Boston Globe officially announcing “Peace” and asking for a word from Mr. Clemens. He sat up in bed and wrote the word, such a strong word—and at 10 o’clock I telephoned it to Boston [see below] …
August 30, 1905 Wednesday

August 30 Wednesday – Sam was back in Dublin, N.H.

Isabel Lyon’s journal:There’s a copy of the Boston Globe here—and each man’s opinion of peace hops gleefully along on the heels of the last speaker. Same thought, same Hurrah! Mr. Clemens’s words alone stand as the words of a man thinking out the problem for himself and daring to speak his thought. In fact he couldn’t not speak his thought, for his thoughts are like great blazing torches, bursting into flame by force of the life within them and unextinguishable [MTP TS 92].

August 31, 1905 Thursday

August 31 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Katharine B. Clemens (Mrs. James Ross Clemens) now in Cobourg, Canada.

I am just back from a gout-smitten 3-weeks’ visit to Clara in her rest-cure in Norfolk, Conn; & short as the distance is, I find the travel worse than the gout. I shan’t take any more journeys.

St. Louisians do not seem to mind railroading at all—they come here every summer, & they have houses of their own here. I suppose Miss Tracy saw Jean, not Clara, but Jean is absent & I can’t find out.

September 1905

September – Miss Carrie Rosenheim of Baltimore, Md. wrote to Sam, calling him a “dear” and asking for an autograph [eBay item 230470822748, May 5, 2010]. Note: not extant but referred to in sale of Sam’s Oct. 9 reply.

Joseph Gilder’s article, “Glimpses of John Hay,” ran in Critic p, 248-52. Tenney: “Briefly tells of an evening with MT, Hay, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Adams, in Washington, January 1886” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p. 331].

September 1, 1905 Friday

September 1 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Aug. 19 of William Hill. Sam was not well enough to write letters, she wrote, and he was seldom moved to write anything, and what he did write belonged to Harper & Brothers as he had a “very rigid contract” [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “I have written to Miss Bright that I cannot, cannot, cannot write that article. Evey bit of me rebels, every bit of my mind and body” [MTP TS 92]. Note: see Aug. 26 entry.

September 2, 1905 Saturday
September 2 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote per Lyon to Ralph W. Ashcroft, again warming him not to put Clemens’ name in any letters; he advised him again not to send any letters without submitting them to William Woodward Baldwin, the American Plasmon Co.’s attorney. “They are awful letters & will do you great harm” [MTP]. Note: Ashcroft had wanted to send a letter out to interested parties including Sam’s name and pasting a picture of a crowing rooster after announcing initial victories in court over John Hays Hammond and his allies in the company.
September 3, 1905 Sunday
September 3 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Norfolk, Conn. mentioning the $2,600 Orchestrelle, which had been disassembled in New York and shipped to Dublin some time before.

P.S. / Sept. 3.
September 4, 1905 Monday
September 4 Monday – Len G. Westland wrote from London, Ontario Canada to offer Sam his “sincere admiration” and “best wishes for a long life…I raise my hat to you sir” [MTP]. Note: a day or two later ? Sam replied: “And, I, also, take off my hat to you; and with many thanks to you for what you have said”

Isabel Lyon’s journal:This morning Mr. Clemens sent for me to talk over the arrangements for a talk before some Boston Club—a woman’s club, and he spoke of all that femaleness as a “Bull fight!”
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