April 3, 1906 Tuesday
April 3 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Gertrude Natkin at 138 W. 98 St., N.Y.

M . Clemens has asked me to send you these tickets for a box for the evening of the 19 , and to say that he would write you himself, but that these are very very busy days, & when he is not working he is too tired to do anything but rest up for the busy day that comes to-morrow.
April 4, 1906 Wednesday

April 4 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Charles J. Langdon in Elmira.

“Was there a Mrs. Lee among the Quaker City’s passengers? I do not recal the name” [MTP]. Note: Mrs. S.G. Lee of Brooklyn was on the excursion [MTL 2: 387].

April 5, 1906 Thursday

April 5 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Alice Pearmain (Mrs. Sumner B. Pearmain).

April 6, 1906 Friday

April 6 Friday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Mary E. Bell: “When Mr. C. came home from the theatre he wrote this sentence hoping it might be made useful among her other testimonials Re—Mrs. Bell” [MTP]. Note: evidently Bell had performed on stage.

Sam also replied to John Greenall in Leeds, England who had written Mar. 27: 

April 7, 1906 Saturday

April 7 Saturday – Clara Clemens wrote to her father, the letter not extant but was quoted by Sam in his Apr. 10 letter to William Dean Howells and also in his reply to Clara [MTP]. See entries.

Sam was elected as the “annual guest” of Smith College’s New York Alumnae at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor. The New York Times, Apr. 8, p. 7, reported:

TWAIN AND SIR PURDON LAUD SMITH GRADUATES

Humorist Elected Annual Guest of the College Club Here.
——— ——— ———
GALA DAY AT HOTEL ASTOR

April 8, 1906 Sunday

April 8 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to a not-extant letter from daughter Clara, now convalescing at the Hotel Brighton in Atlantic City, N.J.  

April 9, 1906 Monday
April 9 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

When you come by for me at 5 this afternoon won’t you please bring me

1—$500-bank note;
4—100-
10—10- 

& please ask Miss Harrison to draw this $1000 from my balance at the Guaranty Trust. / Yours ever

Miss Lyon doesn’t know about this. SL. Clemens [MTHHR 604-5].
April 10, 1906 Tuesday

April 10 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a reply on Edward Everett Hale’s Apr 8. “I had already dismissed the copyright matter from my mind, recognizing that it was too late to accomplish anything with it this year. Therefore I squash my answer to your letter into a simple sentence, to wit:—I haven’t any wish to follow up the copyright matter this year” [MTP].

Sam also replied to the Apr. 8 praise of his A.D. from William Dean Howells:

April 11, 1906 Wednesday
April 11 Wednesday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from the Hotel de France & Choiseul, Paris:

Dear Mark: / I’ve a bit of news which I am sure will interest you, since it is the only happy thing that has befallen this stricken family during the past three years—the engagement of Talbot to a sweet young New England girl, a Miss Eleanor Little. ….
April 12, 1906 Thursday
April 12 Thursday – In the evening Sam and William Dean Howells visited Maxim Gorky. New York newspapers followed Gorky’s every move, including a p. 2 article from the Apr. 13 Times, “MAXIM GORKY VISITS THE TOMB OF GRANT,” which included the following passage on Mark Twain and W.D. Howells:  

Mark Twain and W. D. Howells called upon Gorky at his apartments in the Hotel Belleclaire last evening. They remained with him for about half an hour discussing literature, and invited him to attend a literary dinner about a fortnight from now. Gorky accepted the invitation.
April 12-15, 1906 Sunday
April 12-15 Sunday – Sometime during this period Sam left a calling card at Charlotte Teller Johnson’s house: “I have come to ask after your cold, & to see if you are up & about: in which case can you see me in your workroom instead of venturing out into the air to come to my house? I hope you are well enough to take that risk, but naturally I am not in a position to guess intelligently. / SLC” [MTP].
April 13, 1906 Friday
April 13 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a note of introduction for Maxim Gorky to Josiah Flint Willard at 119 Waverly Place, N.Y.C., replying to Willard’s Apr. 12:

“Dear Maxim Gorky: / M . Willard, the bearer of this, begs me to give him a line of introduction to you & I comply with his request in the conviction that you will find him interesting, since, like yourself, he has seen the seamy side of life & has had adventures” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson.
April 14, 1906 Saturday

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 15, 1906 Sunday

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 16, 1906 Monday

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 17, 1906 Tuesday
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 18, 1906 Wednesday
The Great San Francisco Earthquaje

April 18 Wednesday – The New York Times, Apr. 19, p. 14, “Sutton Beats Slosson by Superior Billiards,” again mentioned Mark Twain’s evening at the international billiards tourney at Madison Square Garden:

April 19, 1906 Thursday
April 19 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a note for Gertrude Natkin (and probably her mother): “Please admit these friends of mine by the stage door, & greatly oblige” [MTP].

In the evening Sam gave his “last speech” at Carnegie Hall in the cause for aid to earthquake- stricken San Francisco. New York newspapers covered the event, including the Times, Apr. 20, p.11.

MARK TWAIN APPEALS FOR THE ‘SMITTEN CITY’

Begs the Audience at His Last Public Lecture to be Liberal.

A UNIQUE TALK ON FULTON
April 20, 1906 Friday

April 20 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Charlotte Teller Johnson that he finished on Apr. 21.

April 21, 1906 Saturday
April 21 Saturday – In the afternoon Sam presided over a meeting at the Casino Theatre to organize help for the city of San Francisco. The New York Evening World, p. 2, reported:

CALIFORNIANS ARRANGE TO GIVE AID TO VICTIMS.
———
Meeting at Casino Under Auspices of Mrs. Oelrichs and Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt, jr., Presided Over by Mark Twain.
April 22, 1906 ca.
April 22 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Ella and Margaret McMahon. “I must send you both a word of sympathy in these days of your bereavement, although I know that words cannot comfort the stricken any more than they can convey the sympathy of the one who writes them”: [MTP]. Note: object of sympathy not specified.
April 23, 1906 Monday
April 23 Monday – The New York Times, p.12, “Billiard Benefit Plans” announced a billiard benefit for San Francisco at the concert hall of Madison Square Garden on the following evening. Mark Twain had been asked to make “a brief address.”

The Old Guard was to parade with a following banquet at the Hotel Astor. Rain cut the parade short but the banquet went off as planned, with Mark Twain making a characteristic late arrival. The New York Times, Apr. 24, p. 7, reported:

OLD GUARD CELEBRATE THEIR 80TH BIRTHDAY
———
April 24, 1904 Tuesday
April 24 Tuesday – In the evening at Madison Square Garden, Sam made some brief remarks at a billiard exhibition of trick shots for the benefit of San Francisco.  

The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition. Once, when I was an underpaid reporter in Virginia City, whenever I wished to play billiards I went out to look for an easy mark. One day a stranger came to town and opened a billiard parlor. I looked him over casually. When he proposed a game, I answered, “All right.”
April 25, 1906 Wednesday
April 25 Wednesday – The New York Times, p. 13, “What is Doing in Society” included a squib about Mark Twain and Miss Ida M. Tarbell to be the guests of honor at a May 1 evening celebration in the Gibson Studios for the tenth anniversary of the incorporation of the College Women’s Club. Fatout does not list his appearance; newspapers give the event as May 4, when Sam was under doctor’s orders “to remain in bed two or three days” [May 4 to Teller].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Jean, noon. Eve.” [MTP TS 68].
April 26, 1906 Thursday
April 26 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote congratulations to Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Lilian W. Aldrich in Ponkapog, Mass.

I rejoice with you.. This is from habit, temperament, training, tradition—that straitjacket which keeps its grip on us always & won’t allow our common sense any little liberty to work. And I rejoice with you in earnest, I can’t help it. Oh, I know—I know. I have stood where Talbot stands, & was happy: happy, & not afraid. What riches! And now—what poverty! Life is a silly invention, an immeasurable brutality. Now, then——
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