• October 24, 1905 Tuesday

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    October 24 Tuesday – Miller Reese Hutchinson sent a telegram to Sam, now at the Pearmain’s house, 388 Beacon Street, Boston : “When can you supply theatrical sketch as per letter of eleventh please answer my expense” [MTP]. Note: this Back Bay address was recently listed for sale as a multi-family house with twelve bedrooms and nine baths with nearly 11,000 square feet, built in 1900.

    Isabel Lyon’s Journal # 2: “Guest of College Club in Boston, 4. P.M.” [MTP TS 32].

  • October 25, 1905 Wednesday

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    October 25 Wednesday – In Boston, Mass. Sam wrote and directed Isabel V. Lyon to answer Miller Reese Hutchison’s Oct. 24 telegram: “Dear Miss Lyon— / Please write him I am not able to undertake it.” [MTP].

    Sam also wrote Miss Lyon to deposit $200 for daughter Clara, and that he would return to N.Y.C. the next day, expecting to be there “only a few days” [MTP].

  • October 26, 1905 Thursday

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    October 26 Thursday – The New York Times, p.1 “These are for Ivins” reported Mark Twain and 26 other notable gentlement who had “signified their intention of working for the election of Mr. Ivins”—William M. Ivins, Sr. (1851-1915), Republican candidate for mayor. Ivins ran third in the mayoral election of 1905, behind George B. McClellan, Jr. and William Randolph Hearst. Note: the Times of Oct. 22, 1905 ran a feature article on Ivins, “A Man of Many Facets.” George B. McClellan, Jr. (1865-1940), NYC Mayor (1904-1909).

  • October 27, 1905 Friday

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    October 27 Friday – At 388 Beacon St., Boston, Mass., Sam inscribed his portrait to Thomas Bailey Aldrich: “Tom Bailey Aldrich, / with the love of / Mark Twain” [MTP]. Note: Aldrich had written on the portrait, “ ‘The whole quire hold their hips, and laffe.’ ” / A Midsummer Night’s Dream. / The whole quire means all the world. / T.B. Aldrich.”

    Sam also wrote to Thomas S. Barbour, of the American branch of the Congo Reform Assoc.

  • October 31, 1905 Tuesday

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    October 31 Tuesday – At the Pearmain’s house, 388 Beacon St., Boston, Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka: “I was interrupted, & didn’t half read the proof of the Horse’s Tale. Will you have it done carefully? Jean goes to New York to-morrow from Dublin—I follow in a few days” [MTP]

  • November 1905

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    November – A formal invitation was sent out to be George B. Harvey’s guest at the celebration of Mr. Clemens’ Seventieth Birthday, Delmonico’s on Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. One such letter went to Louise C. Moulton [MTP].

    Sam also wrote to the Oppenheimer Institute.

  • November 1, 1905 Wednesday

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    November 1 Wednesday – Back at the Pearmain’s house, 388 Beacon Street in Boston, Mass., Sam wrote to daughters Clara and Jean.

    Dear Children, No, it’s for Jean to do, because she knows the Pearmains, & Clara doesn’t. Write Mrs. Pearmain a letter, Jean, & thank her for this house’s hospitalities to me. I have known many hosts in my time, but the Pearmains are the only perfect hosts I have known.

  • November 2, 1905 Thursday

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    November 2 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Mr. Clemens is staying on at the Pearmains’ and he is going to visit the Aldriches too. / I’m beginning my search for rooms” [MTP TS 109]. Note: Trombley points out that Clara insisted Miss Lyon live out of the house, as had been the arrangement when Livy was alive, so that this search for rooms was Lyon’s attempt to find herself housing [MTOW 84]. See excerpt from this source under Nov. 1.

  • November 3, 1905 Friday

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    November 3 Friday – In Boston, Mass. Sam sent a telegram to Richard Watson Gilder of Century Magazine, N.Y. “Your question just received I believe in Ivens [sic Ivins] and Jerome and hope to be allowed to vote my whole strength for them that is to say once as clemens and twice as twain” [MTP]. Note: William M. Ivins, Sr. and William Travers Jerome were running for mayor of N.Y.C. and attorney general of N.Y. County respectively. Ivins was defeated but Jerome was reelected, serving in the post from 1902 to 1909.

  • November 4, 1905 Saturday

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    November 4 Saturday – In Boston, Mass. Sam attended and spoke at the afternoon debate at the Twentieth Century Club. His speech was published by the Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1905, p. l.

    MARK TWAIN TALKS PEACE

    ———

    Boston. Nov. 4.—Mark Twain was the star attraction to-day at the Twentieth Century Club’s weekly debate. Dr. Benjamin F. Trueblood, secretary of the American Peace Society, and Mr. and Mrs. Edwin D. Mead, famous peace advocates, who had just returned from Europe, were the other guests of the club. Mrs. Mead and Dr. Trueblood spoke first.

  • November 5, 1905 Sunday

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    November 5 Sunday – Ruth McCall for Phi Kappa Psi, Smith College wrote to ask Sam to be their peaker at their annual open meeting [MTP].

    Mary Boyle O’Reilly (1873-1939), philanthropist and WWI correspondent, wrote on The Guild of St. Elizabeth (Boston) letterhead to ask Sam for an authographed book for their Nov. 21 fair, as he had done the year before [MTP]. Note: Clemens wrote at top: “Send 2 or 3 / Autographed / Joan of Arc / Dog’s Tale”; see also IVL journal #2 entry for Nov. 9.

  • November 6, 1905 Monday

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    November 6 Monday – Samuel W. McCall wrote to Sam [MTP]. Note: MTP dates Sam’s reply as “on or after 6 November.” Sam responded: “If I would go any where on a platform & break my pledge to myself I would go there—but I mustn’t break that pledge” [MTP]. Note: Samuel Walker McCall (1851-1923), past editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser; at this time congressman from Mass. 8 congressional district; later Gov. of Mass. (1916-1919).

  • November 7, 1905 Tuesday

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    November 7 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Alice Whittemore Pearmain

    I attended to the regime yesterday evening: a substantial dinner at 7. 30, with some deadlies (sweet things; milk & crackers when I went to bed at 10; milk when I woke at 2 a. m; milk & crackers when I woke at 5 a. m; corn bread & 3 cups of unmodified coffee at 8 a. m., (after stealing Clara’s bath, which I found prepared at 7. 30. [ ) ]

  • November 8, 1905 Wednesday

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    November 8 Wednesday – William Ten Eyck Hardenbrook wrote from N.Y.C. to Sam asking for a photograph of him for a “reference collection of portraits, with biographical data of one hundred of the most eminent living Americans.” He supplied a list of photographers who would do a sitting at no cost to Sam should he lack a photograph. On or just after this date Miss Lyon replied for Sam that he did not keep photos on hand but “9—made a good one a year ago,” probably referring to number nine on the list of photographers [MTP].

  • November 10, 1905 Friday

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    November 10 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to the American Academy of Arts & Letters.

    “I desire to vote yea upon the question of electing Mr. William Milligan Slone [sic Sloane] as a member of the Academy, to fill the vacancy caused by the declination of Mr. William James” [MTP].

    Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Clemens went to see Mr. Charles Frohman this morning about Miss Mary Lawton’s theatrical affairs” [MTP TS 33].

  • November 11, 1905 Saturday

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    November 11 Saturday – Miss Nellie Covert wrote from Peabody, Kansas, asking if Clemens had known Captain Henry Switzer while piloting on the Mississippi, or had he ever met any of his family? The lady did not disclose the reason for her question or her possible relationship with Switzer [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs Sam’s response as “on or after 11 November.”Five days estimated postal time is allowed here, with Sam’s response being ca. Nov. 16.

    Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Boeddeker sent half quantity of medicine” [MTP TS 33].

  • November 12, 1905 Sunday

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    November 12 Sunday – The New York Herald ran an interview of Mark Twain, “Mark Twain Would Kill Bosses by Third Party,” by Willis C. Pratt, p. 3-4. The interview is in Scharnhorst, p.507-11, though credit not given to Pratt there. It may also be seen on Twainquotes.com, if that website is still extant. What is not easily found is Pratt’s story of obtaining the interview, published some 50 years ago in the Mark Twain Journal.

    The Last Time I Saw Mark Twain

    Willis C. Pratt, as told to Gertrude Valliere King

  • November 14, 1905 Tuesday

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    November 14 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Samuel H. Row, of Lansing, Michigan, who evidently recalled Sam’s “Roughing It” lecture (incoming not extant) in Lansing, Dec. 20, 1871, “when you were young and handsome I had the pleasure of introducing you to a Lansing audience” [Scharnhorst 527]. Evidently Row asked about Sarony’s ubiquitous photograph of Mark Twain (he sat for at least two portraits, in Nov. 1884 and ca.1894). Note: Sam did not lecture in Lansing on that date, but was in Sandwich, Illinois. His last Lansing lecture was on Dec. 14, 1871. Sam’s reply:

  • November 15, 1905 Wednesday

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    November 15 Wednesday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to John Larkin to complain about the new steam heating system installed in the house. The five men who had investigated the problem had not solved it; the main problem being a “constant singing” in the front bedroom radiators, even when cold, which forced his daughters to put beds in their sitting rooms. He requested the matter be brought before the contractor, James A. Renwick, as soon as possible [MTP].

  • November 16, 1905 Thursday

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    November 16 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Chauncey M. Depew.

    Having had some experience with the methods of the Oppenheimer Institute, through the case of a dependent whom I sent to take the cure, I am interested in knowing what results others have found in the Oppenheimer treatment. As your name is given as one of the advisory directors of the Institute I infer that you have personal knowledge of beneficial results to patients. Will you kindly inform me of any cases within your own knowledge, and oblige [MTP].

  • November 17, 1905 Friday

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    November 17 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam responded to Barbara Mullen’s Nov. 12 note from Hannibal, Mo. “I have not had, in all my life before, so many generous letters & so many generous poems as this past fortnight has brought me; my thanks go out to all these friends, but I wish to thank you particularly” [MTP]. Note: postmarks show Sam’s letter arrived in Hannibal on Nov. 19, only two days. Delivery to Mullen’s home likely took another day.

    Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Frederick A. Duneka:
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