February 23 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Abbott Handerson Thayer:
“Dear Mr. Thayer— / If this should ever reach you, please let me know, for I want to ask about summer-house chances, in Dublin. / Sincerely Yours / SL. Clemens / It is Alice Day who tells me she thinks this may find you” [Archives of American Art, Thayer family papers online image 35456, accessed Mar. 2, 2010]. Note: Dublin, N.H.
February 23 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Joan of Arc” [MTP TS 31].
George J. Helmer, the family’s NY osteopath, wrote to ask Sam for his continued support “just by speaking the word” for the bill on Osteopathy in Albany. On this day Sam replied on Helmer’s letter: “gave 2 or 3 days of time without object[.] Did for the cause once what wouldn’t have done for any other cause for 10000—Didn’t do any good & doesn’t care to repeat that experience” [MTP].
February 23 Sunday – A somewhat longer article on H.H. Rogers and Twain leaving for Bermuda ran on the front page of the New York Times.
ROGERS AND TWAIN SAIL
———
Exchanging Jests on the Pier—Financier Thinks the Outlook Bright.
“This is what I get for being in bad company,” said Mark Twain, humorist, pointing to H. H. Rogers, financier, when a host of interviewers descended upon him yesterday morning on the deck of the steamship Bermudian, previous to their departure for Bermuda.
February 23 Tuesday — Isabel Lyon left Stormfield to recover from her breakdown at her mother’s house in Hartford. She was there ten days. Hill writes of Clara Clemens’ arrival and of the ensuing controversy of suspicion:
February 23 Wednesday-In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam finished his Feb, 21 and 22 to daughter Clara, 117 W. 69 St. NYC c/o Miss Gordon.
February 24 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
This morning Mrs. Crane went home, leaving behind her a blank. Someone spoke of her sweet inward peace, and she radiates it. Mr. Clemens calls her “the well beloved”, and she is all of that.
Pity it is that Mr. Clemens cannot look down a flight of stairs and see the beauty of his head as he stands in a red hall with a searching incandescent light revealing and caressing the wondrous glow of his hair [MTP: TS 41].
February 24 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka. “Saturday. Many thanks. The books have come. I am fully equipped for the voyage now. SL. Clemens” [MTP]. Note: since Sam was not planning any voyage, the reference may be rhetorical.
February 24 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, now at the Hotel Worthy in Springfield, Mass. on a singing tour.
I shall watch with interest for your code-signals, Clärchen dear, & shall hope that they will bring good news from my self-banished exile.
I like Mr. Wark & his honest blue eyes ever so much. I think you are fortunate to be in his guardianship.
February 24 Monday – The Clemens party arrived in Bermuda and Sam checked into the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda where he wrote two postcards to Frances Nunnally.
Francesca dear, I got your letter just as I was leaving New York—thank you dear.
I am writing now because I suppose that the linchpin got lost in the mails; & if that is so, I want you to drop me a line here, so that I can replace it with another.
February 24 Wednesday — Elizabeth P. Brown wrote from NYC to Sam.
I shall put yesterday down as one of the days in which something really happened for it was last evening that your letter came.
Irene was a dear to suggest your writing—and you—what shall 1 say about you for doing as she suggested?
Anyway, I thank you very much indeed. [She regretted not being able to speak to him the day he called at her school. She thought Irene Gerken] “a most bewitching little miss” MTP]. Note IVL: “From Irene's teacher, Miss Brown”
February 24 Thursday - W.T. Mossman, music hall manager, Pittsburg wrote to Sam, “humorously complaining of the quality of printing in the Twain books, while lengthily recounting details of Twain’s life” [MTP: ]. Fricelli Assoc. auction, catalog #7, Brooklyn].
February 24–28, 1906 Wednesday
February 24–28 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam replied to the editor of the Saturday Evening Post that his contract with Harpers “doesn’t allow it. Besides, very busy with regular work” [MTP].
February 25 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Abbott H. Thayer sent a telegram to Sam: “This very great joy to us plenty houses visit us immediately and choose one / A H Thayer.” On the backside of the telegram Sam wrote in pencil what appears to be a response telegram, “Too ill to travel will send representative Shall you be there to see her—Please wire” [MTP]. Note: Henry Copley Greene’s Dublin house, “Lone Tree Hill” on the slope of Mt. Monadnock was chosen. Greene (1871-1951) was an author from an old New England family.
February 25 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
Your news about yourself in your letter of yesterday is exceedingly welcome, & tallies with what Anna said when she was here the other day.
February 25 Tuesday – In Bermuda, Sam made another excursion in the donkey cart, this time to Spanish Point with Irene Gerken. Reginald handled the donkey as before, while Isabel Lyon, Elizabeth Wallace, and William Benjamin all walked. H.H. Rogers did not go [D. Hoffman 105]. See Lyon’s entry below:
February 25 Thursday - In Redding. Conn. Sam wrote to John Albert Macy.
Dear Mr. Macy: / Thank you for Greenwood’s book. I have read it most carefully, and have stolen meat enough from it to stuff yards and yards of sausage-gut in my vast Autobiography and make it look like my own. And really the gut is mine. My, but I have enjoyed that book!
With love to you all,
Clemens,
February 25 Friday — In Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Albert B. Paine in Redding, Conn.
Dear Paine.
Perhaps I have no business to be dictating, and I have refrained all day, because my bronchitis makes it troublecome for me to talk.
I have nothing to say that would not keep over another steamer, but I must bark enough to assure you that I am not in the least degree troubled about those stocks.
February 25-28 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Feb. 21 from John B. Downing, (“Alligator Jack”).
February 26 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Kate Rogers Nowell.
“Dear Mrs Nowell: / Indeed the portrait is fine. I have said it before but the thought is brought up in my mind again by the Outlook’s reproductions—just received the other day—that they are fine also, one can see at a glance” [MTP]. Note: An artist from Mass. was employed, Kate Roger Nowell for The Outlook. No bio. information was found.
February 26 Monday – A telegram (not extant) came to Clemens from Hartford, announcing the death of Patrick McAleer [IVL TS 23]. Note: This was likely sent by Twichell. See IVL’s Feb. 27 entry.
Sam wrote to Joe Twichell: “Shall reach Hartford about two thirty today to attend Patrick’s funeral Wednesday. I desire to be a pall bearer” [MTP]. Note: likely this was a telegram. Also included in IVL’s TS 23.
February 26 Tuesday – With Clara and Paine gone, the house was rather empty and Isabel Lyon was unable to find social contacts for him. Isabel Lyon’s journal:
February 26 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. NY, Isabel Lyon telephoned Albert Bigelow Paine after discovering some missing older letters of Clemens’. Isabel Lyon’s diary:
Tino [a nickname for Paine] in Redding…to ask about letters that I am missing and that the King and Santa [Clara] would hold me responsible for. He was cross and answered in a burst of ill temper that he had many letters and would take them when he wanted to. This is not quite right of Tino—and is a new and regrettable attitude [Hill 201].
February 26 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean now at the Unkeway Farm in Babylon, Long Island, N.Y.
You dear Jean, I was glad to hear from you. I have a photograph of your house, & I think it is most attractive. For your sake I hope it is as pleasant as it looks.
That poor old Geronimo! I am glad his grand old patriot heart is at peace, no more to know wrong & insult at the hands of the Christian savage.