March – May? – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Leonard Henslowe. “I am shut up with illness; but even if I were well I would not be interviewed by any but an enemy, & I am sure I do not take you for that” [MTP]. Note: Henslowe’s incoming not extant.
March 1 Friday – Fatout lists a speech for Sam at the William Dean Howells dinner [MT Speaking 676]. Note: On Feb. 19, George B. Harvey had invited Sam for a Mar. 1 birthday dinner for Howells at the Cosmopolitan Club. No record was found for the contents of Sam’s remarks. See Feb. 19 entry.
Sam wrote “to any friend or acquaintance of mine” [MTP]. Note: not found at MTP.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Terrible headache” [MTP TS 32].
March 2 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote congratulations to Murat and Mary Banks Halstead on their 50 wedding anniversary. The letter is not extant but was reported by the New York Times, Mar. 3, p. 7 “Halstead’s Golden Wedding.”
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The Chorus Lady. King spent night at Rogers” [MTP TS 32]. Note: The Chorus Lady written by James Forbes and produced by Henry B. Harris, played at the Hackett Theatre, NYC.
March 3 Sunday – In the evening Sam dined with the Robert J. Collier’s and a “dozen other guests.” He wore his “full evening dress of white broadcloth” and called it “just stunning!” [Mar. 5 to Clara; Jean; IVL TS 32].
March 4 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).
March 5 Tuesday – In the morning Sam signed the lease for William Voss’ house in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. (about 30 miles from N.Y.C.) from May to October, 1907 [Mar. 5 to Jean; Hill 164]. The house was near Harry and Mary Rogers. Trombley writes that Sam carried on “an extended negotiation” with Voss reducing the rent from $2,400 to $1,500 [MTOW 133]. Note: the gated community was built in 1886 by Pierre Lorillard IV (1833-1901), the tobacco magnate, as a retreat for his rich New York friends.
March 6 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Letter from Isabel F. Hapgood.
March 7 Thursday – Sam did not attend the memorial meeting for the late Ernest Howard Crosby, one of the founders of the Social Reform Club, but sent a letter (not extant), as did a few other luminaries. Sam was listed in the Feb. 23 NY Times article as being among those in charge of the meeting in Cooper Union [NY Times, Mar. 8, p.2 “Honor Crosby’s Memory”].
Franklin and Harriet Whitmore came for a three-day stay with Sam [Mar. 12 to Clara; Hill 165; IVL TS 32].
March 8 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. & Mrs. Gilder were here for luncheon today, & the chat was pleasant. The talk after luncheon fell on the Shelly Keats Memorial & the part Mr. Clemens took in it & Mrs. Whitmore asked him to read Rabbi Ben Ezra to us—which he did.
March 9 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Yesterday came a letter from AB containing a beautiful tribute to the King. I’ll keep it right here. The King was sweetly moved by it. He lies in bed a lot these days when he isn’t flitting around the billiard table. He played all the afternoon, or much of it after Mr. Stanchfield who had been lunching here left us. This morning I sat in the King’s dressing room while he shaved, & went over the batch of mail there.
March 10 Sunday – Franklin and Harriet Whitmore ended their three-day visit at 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. with Sam [Mar. 12 to Clara].
March 11 Monday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Mar. 1 reqeust from Calvin H. Higbie, enclosing the MS Higbie had sent the previous summer. Higbie had lost his copy. Sam also wanted to clarify Albert Bigelow Paine’s legitimate position as his biographer with Higbie, who evidently had misunderstood his role. Paine was “well on his way to California” [MTP].
March 12 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, who evidently had chided him for wearing his white suit in public.
Clara dear, your impression was right. The white clothes are for home use, and are not to be worn outside, except at the tables of very intimate friends.
Your growing popularity does certainly give me a good many pangs, and yet I want it to continue, and increase. It is curious, but I feel just so about it.
March 13 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: The check has gone off for the Bermuda tickets, & we are to sail on Saturday. Mr. Howells came in to see the King this afternoon & said that Mrs. Howells is proposing to go to Bermuda on the 28th, but that he has to pretend indifference, otherwise she’d back down at once. For tht’s what she always does. It’s her illness that causes her to oppose anything that Mr. Howells wants to do.
March 14 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: This morning I mentioned R.U. Johnson not being at a meeting & the King let on to be astonished, & he said “Oh Jesus, No Johnson. Undershirt!” Mr. Rogers arrived pretty early & the King was in the bathroom; he came along the hall in his night clothes & his old red slippers, saying “Oh yes, oh yes, I reckon you’ll find that somebody else is up just as early as you are” & then as the door closed, followed the usual affectionate abuse of each other.
March 15 Friday – Sam sat for A.F. Bradley, a New York photographer. Isabel Lyon’s journal recorded the event:
March 16 Saturday – Sam, Isabel Lyon, and the “pretty young girl” Paddy Madden left on the Bermudian. The trip would be a five-day getaway for Sam, who was suffering from gout, but all but one day would be on board the ship. Also on the outward voyage Charles W. Eliot (1834-1926), president of Harvard, and Thomas D. Peck, woolen manufacturer from Pittsfield, Mass., were on board. Sam and Peck conducted a lottery on the ship to benefit the Cottage Hospital in Bermuda, the only civilian one there [D. Hoffman 78-9].
March 17 Sunday – Sam was en route to Bermuda on the Bermudian. It was now a two-day voyage.
March 18 Monday – Sam, Isabel Lyon, and Paddy Madden reached Bermuda.
March 19 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We sailed away again this morning. We had a darling time when leaving time came, for every one way paying court to the King, and photographing him. We flew over to Trinningham’s [D. Hoffman shows this as Trimingham’s] and bought him a nice panama hat, one like Binny’s, and Binny was struggling with an Irish flag to hoist to the top of his hired boat in Paddy’s honor and altogether it was charming. The afternoon before there had been some good talk with Mr.
March 20 Wednesday – Sam was on the Bermudian en route to N.Y.C. Isabel Lyon’s journal: “A beautiful rough day” [MTP TS 41].
Arthur E. Bullard for Friends of Russian Freedom wrote to advise Sam they were organizing on a national basis and requested he be on their executive committee [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “I am in full sympathy with the movement & am willing to have my name used, but as I am too full of duties I cannot furnish any active service”
March 21 Thursday – The Bermudian docked in N.Y.C. Sam returned home to 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. and sent a telegram to Lilian W. Aldrich in Boston:
“I have just learned to-night with the deepest sorrow of your heavy bereavement & I tender the heartfelt sympathy of an old friend who always loved him, & who would comfort you if any words of his could do it” [MTP].
March 22 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote an introductory note for Frederick Upham Adams (representing Harper’s) to Dr. John S. Billings. The introduction was “upon library business” [MTP].
March 23 Saturday – Fatout lists Sam giving a Pilgrim’s dinner speech at the Ambassador James Bryce Dinner, Waldorf-Astoria, N.Y.C. [MT Speaking 676]. Particulars below:
The New York Sun, Mar. 24, p.4, “Bryce Guest of Pilgrims” reported the event but does not mention any speech by Mark Twain. In part (with all mentions of Mark Twain):
BRYCE GUEST OF PILGRIMS.
GREETINGS AT DINNER TO THE
BRITISH AMBASSADOR.
——— ———
March 24 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: A lazy recuperative day, I think. I have never been so exhausted as just now. I was telling the King this morning how mother who spends her winters near here changed her boarding house by herself and got into a house of questionable character and he told me of how when Mr. And Mrs. Twichell were in London many years ago, they spent a week in a house of prostitution and would probably be there yet, if some friend hadn’t taken them out [MTP TS 44].