The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day

May 26, 1906 Saturday

May 26 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

This afternoon when Mr. Clemens picked up the Times & noticed the date, he said, “This is one of my anniversaries—48 years ago I said goodbye to my little sweetheart”. He told me then how he had said that he wouldn’t see her for years—2 or 3—& she had given him a little gold ring & then he went away. Laura Wright was her name & she was very young. In all these 48 years he had never seen her. There weren’t many romances in his life. There were 2 early ones, Laura Wright and Laura Hawkins [MTP TS 73-74].

May 27, 1906 Sunday

May 27 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

May 28, 1906 Monday

May 28 Monday – Clemens’ A.D. for the day: Clemens calls on General Ulysses Grant just as he is about to sign contract with Century Co. for publication of his Memoirs on 10% royalty.

Clemens dissuades him, and finally decides to publish them himself. Terms upon which they were published [MTP Autodict2].

Frank N. Doubleday for Doubleday, Page & Co. wrote to Sam.

May 29, 1906 Tuesday

May 29 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam began a letter to Charlotte Teller Johnson that he added to on May 30, 31 and June 2, 1906.

May 30, 1906 Wednesday

May 30 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam added to his May 29 to Charlotte Teller Johnson.

May 31, 1906 Thursday

May 31 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam added to his May 29, 30 to Charlotte Teller Johnson.        

Summer 1906

Summer 1906 – Sometime during his 1906 stay in Dublin (May 18 to Oct. 18, excluding a few trips), Sam met Ethel Barrymore, who was spending the summer at the artists’ colony in Cornish, N.H., where she posed for several paintings. The colony, active between 1895 and 1925, was spread out over Windsor, Vt., Plainfield, and Cornish. During its time nearly 100 artists, sculpors, writers, designers, and well-known politicians chose to live there, either for the full year or during summertimes. Barrymore would become a famous actress.

June 1906

June – Sam wrote “The Private Secretary’s Diary.” It was first published in Fables of Man (1972).

June 1, 1906 Friday

June 1 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

June 2, 1906 Saturday

June 2 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam finished his May 29, 30, 31 to Charlotte Teller Johnson.  

June 3, 1906 Sunday

June 3 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

The morning bed-talks are vastly interesting. I go into Mr. Clemens’s room a little before 9, after he has finished his breakfast. I make a good audience for him to talk against in order to get himself into the dictating swing. The day has passed long since when he discovered he couldn’t sting me by his tirades against the superstitions of the church & his disgust at those who worship “a tarbaby of a Jesus Christ” or the “dangling carcass of a virgin”, so he lets his speech flow freely on those subjects.

June 4, 1906 Monday

June 4 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.

I find that this “Library of Humor” is not the one which was compiled by me, but is a new book, in whose compilation I have had no part.Also, I find that this book is being actually “published” & its sale pushed.

Also I find that it is not a cheap book, “with no money in it for either of us,” but is cloth-bound & higher priced than my own book.

June 5, 1906 Tuesday

June 5 Tuesday – Marguerite Merington wrote to Sam. “To-morrow –Wed. June 6, at four, Dr. Douglas Hyde, President of the Gaelic League and Mrs Hyde are coming to me at dear Ruth McEnery Stuart’s with whom I am staying. They would so greatly like to see you—Mrs Stuart joins me in warmly hoping that you and the Misses Clemens will come” [MTP].

June 6, 1906 Wednesday

June 6 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam sent a telegram to H.H. Rogers. “Yes still am investor to amount formaly mentioned Come up here both of you and I will return with you if properly invested”

Sam then wrote Rogers a letter:

I’ve been sending you a line by telegraph.

June 7, 1906 Thursday

June 7 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara at the 21 Fifth Ave. home in N.Y.C.  

Clärchen dear, it is good news you send, very good news indeed. I take it that with your voice’s progress your health improves, too—may it continue!

I hope you will not have to stay in New York after this month, for I judge you are going to have blistering weather there.

June 8, 1906 Friday

June 8 Friday – Clara Clemens’ 32 birthday. She called her father on the telephone, that device he used to swear and rail at in Hartford in the late 1870s [June 9 to Clara]. nd      

June 9, 1906 Saturday

June 9 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara.

Clärchen dear, many happy returns! it was a joy to hear your dear voice in the telephone yesterday.

June 10, 1906 Sunday

June 10 Sunday – In the evening in Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson.

Let me congratulate, let me shout! I wrote you a good deal of a letter to-day, & took a world of pains with it, in the pretty doubtful hope of persuading you to put the work aside a while & not destroy yourself with it, but I have burnt it without a regret for the labor wasted. Charlotte dear, you have come through handsomely, you remarkable creature! Take a good satisfying rest— you deserve it.

June 11, 1906 Monday

June 11 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson, trying to cheer her up; she was discouraged “after a long hard siege of work,” as he put it. He regretted his “foolish letter” to her, and acknowledged that her “nerves would be worn” from her “long toil.”

June 12, 1906 Tuesday

June 12 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Samuel S. McClure. “Just please call on Mr. Rogers & talk your ideas to him about everything. The idea of syndicating those books seems to me a good one & I dont see that it could be objectionable to the publishers at all” [MTP].

June 13, 1906 Wednesday

June 13 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote one sentence to H.H. Rogers, asking him to get his Christian Science book from Harper’s and put it in his safe until he arrived [MTHHR 610].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Beginning of headache. E

June 14, 1906 Thursday

June 14 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Miss Martha S. Bensley (later Bruere) (1879-1953), author who had her articles on the Russian revolution published in the Mar. 1906 issue of the A.F. of Labor’s magazine, American Federationist.

June 15, 1906 Friday

June 15 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

June 16, 1906 Saturday

June 16 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam began a long letter to Charlotte Teller Johnson he added to on June 17, 18.  Several portions of pages were cut out.

June 17, 1906 Sunday

June 17 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam added to his June 16 to Charlotte Teller Johnson.

Sunday continued. I’ve come back to bed—there was no way to put in the time. It is still raining as hard as ever, & is reposeful & contenting. I finished both letters—oh, acres of MS!— make them kill time for me as long as I could. If by good luck Mr. Rogers says yes—but I know he will, & then I shall do as I’ve said.
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