September 5, 1905 Tuesday
September 5 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam replied by telegram to one from George B. Harvey that he was unable to come the Metropolitan Club dinner on Sept. 7 for the Russian envoys who negotiated a favorable treaty for Russia in the Russo-Japanese war. Sam would follow an explanation by letter [MTP]. Note: see Harvey’s original telegram and Lyon’s entry below.

George B. Harvey sent a telegram to Sam:
September 6, 1905 Wednesday
September 6 Wednesday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote Koy-Lo Co. letterhead to Sam, enclosing a letter from attorney Edward Lauterbach, who did not think Ashcroft had jeopardized himself in writing to Hammond. Ashcroft also enclosed a cartoon and a “want ad” from the NY Herald which he swore he had not placed [MTP].
September 7, 1905 Thursday

September 7 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I want to send you Twichell’s letter, but it is lost—not permanently, I merely can’t find it. I was going to carry it to you when I thought I was going to Fairhaven from Norfolk, & so I must have put it away too carefully. I will find it between now & next time I see you.

I do not get entirely over my lameness, & the gout has never kept up its threatenings so long before. Certainly the righteous do have a rough time of it in this world, I wish I was like Rice.

September 8, 1905 Friday
September 8 Friday – E. Hampden-Cook, Congregational Minister in Sandbach, Cheshire, England wrote to Sam, upset that many in England were turning away from traditional churches to Christian Science. He’d contacted Chatto & Windus hoping to print Sam’s Christian Science article from the Oct. 1899 Cosmopolitan in a cheap brochure, which he could distribute to the masses. Sam’s English publishers had replied to him that their arrangements would not allow them to give their permission [MTP]. Note: Sam’s response is estimated to be ca. Sept.
September 9, 1905 Saturday
September 9 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
September 10, 1905 Sunday
September 10 Sunday – Sam’s Sept. 5 note to George B. Harvey, explaining why he could not meet the Russian envoys (who had negotiated the Portsmouth Treaty) at a dinner at the Metropolitan Club last Thursday, Sept. 7 was published in the New York Times, p. 2, “Twain’s Tribute to Envoys.” See Sept. 5.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: His morning Mr. Clemens read aloud to me some more of the [his] Gospel.
September 11, 1905 Monday
September 11 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. and Mrs. Sumner, Mrs. Greene and Miss Greene dined here. Mr. Clemens wasn’t well. He is suffering from indigestion and he wasn’t himself and everything went wrong.

Jean went to look at the Upton house for another year.

I went with Miss Greene for a little drive up to Mr. Pumpelly’s wonderful height [MTP TS 96]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Jean went to look at the Upton house with a view to taking it for next summer & she likes it” [MTP TS 27].
September 12, 1905 Tuesday
September 12 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Jean—Bathroom, 10 AM. Mr. Clemens has been in bed all day living on toasts and gruels and he is nervous. The indigestion seems better but its traces remain. A letter came today from Col. Harvey in which he said that he showed the letter Mr. Clemens wrote, in response to the invitation to the banquet to the Russians, to Mr. Witte. He couldn’t read it—so it was translated for him and he asked for it to take it back to Russia to his Czar [MTP TS 96].
September 13, 1905 Wednesday

September 13 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “A wooly game! Today Mrs. Henderson came with two of her delightful children. Mr. Clemens isn’t very well—he is on a strict diet of plasmon and broths and he looks white and badly” [MTP TS 96, 98].

Albert Lee for Collier’s Weekly wrote to Sam, enclosing a check for $150 for payment of his article on Christian Citizenship. “We have received a number of letters concerning it, among others one from a gentleman who sends you a ticket to Heaven, which I submit herewith” [MTP].

September 14, 1905 Thursday
September 14 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Today I’m regretting the hours that have to go into the fashioning of costumes. This afternoon Mr. Sterling called and Secretary Hancock [sic Hitchcock], he went up to see Mr. Clemens and later Mr. Thayer came in, to be followed by Mrs. [Alice] Pearmain and Mr. Montague. The three men went up to talk with Mr. Clemens and in his whiteness he held an audience there. I think it was good for him for he had been saying that he feels as if he had sawdust in his brain.
September 15, 1905 Friday

September 15 Friday – Dublin, N.H.: Sam wrote to Clara Clemens. Clärchen dear, I have just written the [Hotel] Touraine that you & Miss Alling may possibly arrive Tuesday the 19th ; & to take care of you. I have told Katy you are going to New York the 20th; you will see her there.

September 16, 1905 Saturday

September 16 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam replied to Lilian W. Aldrich’s Sept. 15:

Dear Mrs. T.B.: / You don’t need the secretary. Mr. Rogers does not see very many of the business letters that go to 26 Broadway, but he sees & reads all the personal letters that go there addressed to him.

I am going to hope with all my might that I can go from another friend’s house in Boston about the 27th or the 28th of October & have a day with you; but I’ll have to excuse Jean—she would be too much responsibility for me.

September 17, 1905 Sunday

September 17 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Learned came in for a dish of tea, and then Mr. Pearmain and Mr. Montague came in too later—and the 3 of them sat and talked in front of the open fire, and they smoked. Jean went off to the Henderson’s and Mr. Clemens read an article to me that he has been working on lately. Oh its about the Interpretation of the Deity, so wonderful and strong, and true like every bit of that wonderful brain of his [MTP TS 98, 100].

September 18, 1905 Monday

September 18 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “The Privilege of the Grave” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi, 55-60].

In Dublin, N.H. Sam also replied to the ca. Sept. 15 from Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865-1932), born Marie Augusta Davey in New Orleans, leading actress from childhood on, and also a playwright and activist for artistic freedom.

September 19, 1905 Tuesday

September 19 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Lyon sent Sam’s biographical sketch by Moffett to the Knickerbocker Publishing Co. Sam’s letter with enclosure is not extant but referred to in the Publisher’s Sept. 20 letter [MTP].

September 20, 1905 Wednesday

September 20 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

September 21, 1905 Thursday

September 21 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey

“Dear Colonel— / All right, bang away, go ahead. Yes it will be a ‘red-letter day,’ & a red-headed day, too, for Old Age will take the scalp of Belated Youth that day—mine, to-wit” [MTP]. Note: likely a go-ahead for Harvey’s plans to honor Mark Twain’s 70th birthday.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: All the days are sprinkled with pin cushions. They’re pretty little creatures, and best of all they sell. Teresa calls them my boys. George MacDonald is dead at 83

September 22, 1905 Friday

September 22 Friday – At 9 a.m. in Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Thomas S. Barbour of the Congo Reform Assoc., Boston, that he was “sending something which you should stop the press & add if humanly possible.” Mounted on another page was the following:

KING LEOPOLD’S SOLILOQUY

THE PUBLISHERS DESIRE TO STATE THAT MR. CLEMENS DECLINES TO ACCEPT
ANY PECUNIARY RETURN FROM THIS BOOKLET, AS IT IS HIS WISH THAT ALL
PROCEEDS OF SALES ABOVE THE COST OF PUBLICATION SHALL BE USED IN

September 23, 1905 Saturday
September 23 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Thomas S. Barbour of the Congo Reform Assoc. in Boston.

M . Clemens directs me to write for him saying that he has been considering whether he could be made an honorary president, or a second president, so that he could be connected with the Congo Reform Association without doing any work, but could be of service by giving the use of his name. Will you kindly tell M . Clemens what you think of it? [MTP].
September 24, 1905 Sunday
September 24 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.

DUBLIN, Sept. 24, ’05.
September 25, 1905 Monday

September 25 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka (letter not extant but referred to in Duneka’s Sept. 26) [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:“Some youngsters here for dinner and a romp. Jean in a turmoil and a nest of tempers because those young guests didn’t assemble in invited sequence. The two Henderson children, Gerald and Hildegarde, didn’t talk a bit—but listened spellbound to every word that fell from Mr. Clemens’s lips” [MTP TS 102].

September 26, 1905 Tuesday
September 26 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Tonight Mr. Clemens read 70 pages of the new story he has been working upon for the last 4 or 5 days. (“A Horse’s Tale”)

A letter from Santa C. [Clara] tells that she had a nasal operation last week, and is weak and tired and discouraged, but she’s better now than she was [MTP TS 102].
September 27, 1905 Wednesday
September 27 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
September 28, 1905 Thursday

September 28 Thursday – Sam’s essay: King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule, was published as a pamphlet for the American branch of the Congo Reform Assoc. by The P.R. Warren Co., Boston. Budd: “At least three further printings followed soon afterward, and a ‘Second Edition,’ with additional supplementary material, was issued late in 1905 or early in 1906” [Collected 2: 1010]. Note: Hawkins points out that the pamphlet, by Twain’s suggestion, “contained several photographs of mutilated Congolese.

September 29, 1905 Friday

September 29 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Harper & Brothers, asking them to send the magazine to 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. instead of to Dublin, beginning with the Nov. issue [MTP].

Lyon also replied to Robert Underwood Johnson (incoming Sept. 21) that Sam would be unable to make a meeting of the Academy of Arts & Letters as he would not be in the city until about Nov. 7 [MTP].

Subscribe to The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day