December 4 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal (in Hartford): “At twilight I walked through the beautiful rooms of this beautiful house & my heart torn into sobbing shreds by my homesickness for the King” [MTP TS 148]. Note: she likely toured the Farmington Ave. house.
December 5 Wednesday – Francis Trevelyan Miller for Connecticut Magazine wrote to Sam, enclosing a poem, “To Genial, Whole-Souled Mark Twain,” and a copy of the current issue with birthday congratulations [MTP].
Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur” written to contrast English life of the Middle Ages with modern civilization—Arraignment of King Leopold II— His character contrasted with character of lawyer who cared for John Marshall Monument Fund [MTP Autodict3; MTE 211-213].
December 6 Thursday – Sam replied to the Dec. 1 from Eugene Fitch Ware aka “Ironquill”, the letter later appearing in the Dec. 16 issue of the Washington Post, p. E6. which contained Ware’s “compliment” and Sam’s reply:
Dear Mr. Ware:
December 7 Friday – Sam was in Washington, D.C., and spoke before the Joint Congressional Committee on Patents in favor of stronger copyright legislation. It was a cause Twain was long chasing. Shelden writes perhaps the most dramatic and telling account of his appearance in his white suit:
December 8 Saturday – At the New Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C., Sam wrote Emilie R. Rogers:
Oh, dear me I am ashamed! I forgot to telephone you (in my hurry) that I must rush off to Washington in the interest of the new copyright bill & couldn’t keep my engagement for 5 p.m. yesterday with you. I am dreadfully sorry, & I apologize.
December 9 Sunday – Margaret H. Wentworth wrote from Wash. D.C. to Sam. She had “two young orphan nieces” under her care and asked if Twain might see them for a minute while in town [MTP].
December 10 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Home again—& the King is still in Washington. The papers are full of him, for he went down there with plenty of white clothes & people love to see him in them” [MTP TS 149].
David A. Munro for the North American Review wrote to Sam:
I am in distress over one of the first four pages of the new instalment of the autobiography, and the printer expects me to send them to the press tomorrow. That is why I pursue you to Washington.
December 11 Tuesday – Sam sat for photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) in her Washington, D.C. studio. He wore his white suit [Madsen 53]. Note: Johnston was a well-established professional who had photographed some of America’s prominent figures, including Theodore Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington, Andrew Carnegie, John Philip Sousa and others; She was the first official White House photographer. See p. 54 or print LC-J601-1305 or 1305A on Library of Congress website.
December 12 Wednesday – Sam returned to New York, and 21 Fifth Ave. [NY Times – above].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “This afternoon I went out to do an errand & on my return I found the King had arrived. He seemed sweeter & mellower than ever before. He can go away from me, but I shall not go away from him again unless he sends me” [MTP TS 149].
December 13 Thursday – Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: As regards the coming American Monarchy [MTP Autodict3].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
This morning when I told the King apropos of AB’s friends that there was one of them that he didn’t like & that it was Stedman, he said, “Oh, no, I only despise him, I don’t dislike him.”
AB is going to live here in the house to be the King’s billiard player.
Strength is flowing back into my veins & I am glad to be alive.
December 14 Friday – C.B. Fleet, druggist, Lynchburg, Va. wrote a humorous anecdote prefaced by the tale that Sam once told of a chairman of a lecture committee, complimenting him on “Heathen Chinee,” one of Bret Harte’s poems. It seems just after a play of Col. Sellers there, a man thought to be intelligent said about the play, “if you’ve seen one Shakespeare play, you’ve seen them all” [MTP].
December 15 Saturday – Harper’s Weekly published Mark Twain’s letter to Henry Mills Alden to observe Alden’s 70 birthday. The letter was written sometime between Oct. 22 and Nov. 10, 1906.
December 16 Sunday – Mr. and Mrs. Edwin R. Ray wrote, from Tacoma,Wash. to express thanks for HF—their two “fine boys” are always “instantly delighted” by having it read to them [MTP].
December 17 Monday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam and declined an invitation to lecture from Mrs. Caverly [MTP].
Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: The coincidence of the Kaiser’s and the portier’s appreciation of “Old Times on the Mississippi,” expressed almost in the same moment—The coincidence of Clemens reflecting on the definition of the word civilization, and then picking up the morning paper and finding his very ideas set forth by a writer who attributed the marrow of his remarks to Clemens [MTP Autodict3].
December 18 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to Frederic Whyte’s Dec. 7, which included an excerpt from Alfred Russel Wallace’s book The Wonderful Century containing advocacy of phrenology. Whyte asked if Sam had studied phrenology (reading of bumps on the scalp).
December 19 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Dec. 13 from Miss Cally Thomas Ryland. “I am thankful to say that such letters as yours do come—as you have divined—with a happy frequency. They refresh my life, they give it value; like yours, they are always welcome, and I am always grateful for them. / Sincerely Yours …” [MTP]. Note: Ryland used a common device for humorist—she created a fictional “alter ego” who could get away with speaking blunt and outlandish truths, much like Twain’s “Mr. Brown.” She was the society editor for the Richmond News Leader.
December 20 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Geraldine Farrar” [MTP TS 150].
Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: Capt. Osborn tells to Bret Harte, in a Californian restaurant, his adventure of falling overboard and his rescue. A tramp overhears him, claims to be his rescuer, is liberally rewarded, and afterwards discovered to be an impostor [MTP Autodict3].
William R. Coe sent Sam a large fold out map of Bermuda. No letter [MTP].
December 21 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Electric music. Bermuda.
The King is planning to go to Bermuda if Mr. Twichell can go too, & I’m to go as valet & myself. I’ve written to Mr. Twichell & now we’re waiting. Mr. Clemens would like to go there for the summer & has had me look up the temperature & other things. He thinks he’d like the isolation, but the lack of companionship would make more desolation for him than anything else, for he of all people must have companionship—mental companionship.
December 22 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to thank Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers) for the Christmas cigars and the kind remembrance. He would come up “pretty soon” to wish a Merry Christmas in person as he’d “worked off the several-days’ engagements which Clara had piled” on [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Mrs. Fiske’s play” [MTP TS 151-152].
The New York Times, Dec. 23, p.2 ran an article about Mark Twain and the telephone, quoting him from the previous day, Dec. 22:
December 23 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied with thanks to the Dec. 18 of Helen Keller.
O, thank you for those lovely words!
Now as to your January visit: we must certainly meet then, & have a talk.
Another thing. You say,
“As a reformer, you know that ideas must be driven home again & again.”
December 24 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
C.C. goes to spend tonight with the Gilders & she’ll hang up her stocking. The King wanted to be represented too in that stocking, so he sent me up to Vantine’s to buy a pin—it happened to be a jade pin & is good.
December 25, 1906 Tuesday Christmas
December 25 Tuesday Christmas – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed in a copy of What is Man? to Neltje Blanchan DeGraff Doubleday (1865-1918) (Mrs. Frank N. Doubleday) :
December 26 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.) in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. After musing over who it was that called and said her name was Mrs. Rogers, Sam offered this fictional dialogue about going to Bermuda in summer.
Naturally I came home yesterday almost entirely convinced that Bermuda-in-summer & suicide are interchangeable terms. By midnight I had almost come to the conclusion to retire from the experiment.
December 27 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Nov. 9 from David M. Jones.
Dear Father Jones: /It is a pleasant & welcome greeting and I thank you cordially for it.
December 28 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
“Puppy chew the soap.”
“Mr Clemens do you care to contribute to the Booth Memorial Fund?”
“No I don’t. I hate this idea of celebrities scratching each other’s backs & I don’t want anybody to be asked to contribute anything—for me!” [MTP TS 154-155].