November 10 Thursday – On this day or Nov. 11 at the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Frank N. Doubleday.
I did not know you were going to England: I would have freighted you with such messages of homage & affection to Kipling. And I would have pressed his hand, through you, for his sympathy with me in my crushing loss, as expressed by him in his letter to Gilder. You know my feeling for Kipling & that it antedates that expression.
November 11 Friday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Robert Reid and the Players Club.
To Robert Reid & the others— /well-beloved:
Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charlie’s heart, if he had one, & certainly they have gone to mine. I shall be glad & proud to come back again, after such a moving & beautiful compliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hope you can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate.
November 12 Saturday – Henry W. Fisher (Fischer) wrote to Sam, enclosing a clipping (in German) that he felt “shows that the people of Vienna have not forgotten you.” Did he get the books sent on Apr. 12 on William II? Private Lives of William II and his Consort and Secret History of the Court of Berlin by Henry W. Fischer, (pseud. Ursula, Countess von Eppinghoven) [MTP; Gribben 231].
November 13 Sunday – Margaret Jenkins wrote from London a delayed message of condolence to Sam, delayed only by lack of an address. She added, “Norbury is going to American this week, & hopes to have the pleasure of seeing you” [MTP]. Note: William Brabazon Lindsay Graham-Toler, 4th Earl of Norbury
November 15 Tuesday – Edwin Frost for the Society of Sons of Steerage wrote from Providence, R.I., to announce a dinner in honor of Thomas Nelson Page , on Nov. 21 at 10 p.m. “The unusually late hour has been selected in order to allow Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, who is engaged earlier in the evening, to be present” [MTP].
Charles J. Langdon wrote a short note to Sam, enclosing some article of praise for Mark Twain (not in the file, but written at the top “Estimates of M.T.” [MTP].
November 16 Wednesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote a letter of recommendation for Madame Hartwig:
To whom it may concern:
November 17 Thursday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Katharine I. Harrison, asking her to place 3,500 lire for him with the Manhattan Trust co. for the credit of Haskard & Co., Ltd, Florence. He suggested any future Florentine accounts be paid this way [MTHHR 581].
Sam also wrote to Sebastiano V. Cecchi, letter not extant but referred to in Cecchi’s Dec. 16.
November 18 Friday – An unidentified person wrote from NY to Sam, only the envelope survives [MTP].
November 20 Sunday – Sam also wrote to Sebastiano V. Cecchi, letter not extant but referred to in Cecchi’s Dec. 16.
November 22 Tuesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Katharine I. Harrison. “This Aeolian bill is correct. Will you please send a check for it to the Co. for me, & greatly oblige …. A week from to-day I expect to move into the house, & shall expect to have Jean with me two days later. Then I shall be glad!” [MTHHR 582].
Sam also wrote to William Hawk that the border (mourning) of his note explained why he could not come; he’d mislaid the invitation after answering it promptly, and so was answering it again [MTP].
November 23 Wednesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
November 24 Thursday – In Lee Mass. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Tabitha “Puss” Greening (Quarles) in Palmyra, Mo. that Sam was in New York but had said he was sorry for her “sad loss” and asked Lyon to send the enclosed check for $25 to help with funeral expenses [MTP]. Note: Greening had written on Nov. 19, letter in the Vassar collection, but not listed by MTPO.
November 25 Friday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Lee, Mass.
November 26 Saturday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote thanks to an unidentified man.
“I hardly need to say that your letter has given me great pleasure—you would know that,yourself—& I thank you very very much” [MTP].
Harper’s Weekly in “A Constant Reader,” ran “The God of Battles,” p. 1814. Tenney: “Incorrectly ascribes to MT a letter in the previous issue. Also, p. 1820, a brief MT anecdote on an occasion when he missed his steamboat and made no excuse in his report: ‘My boat left at 7.20. I arrived at the wharf at 7.35 and could not catch it’” [39].
November 27 Sunday – In N.Y.C. Sam inscribed Hillcrest Edition sets of his books to daughters Clara and Jean. Only two volumes to Jean are given by MTP. The set to Clara was sold by Sotheby’s auction, Apr. 13, 2004, Lot 27, for $96,000. Like the two sets with aphorisms given on Oct. 29, 1904 to William R. Coe and William F. Benjamin (H.H. Rogers’ son-in-laws), Sam used mostly maxims from FE, “Puddn’head Wilson’s New Calendar” (in Clara’s set, nineteen of 23 aphorisms were from FE) [MTP].
November 29 Tuesday – On or about this day Sam moved into his new home at 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. and daughter Jean arrived as well.
November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 69th Birthday.
C. Brereton Sharpe wrote from International Plasmon Co., London to Sam, asking him to act as their proxy for the planned American Plasmon Co. shareholders meeting of Dec. 22 [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s diary: “Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens was talking of Moncure D. Conway. He is reading Conway’s autobiography just published, and it made him hark back to the days in London 24 years ago” [Gribben 157: 1903-1906 Journal, TS 28, MTP].
December – Sam’s essay, “Saint Joan of Arc” first appeared in Harper’s Monthly (p. 3-12). It was collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].
Sam wrote a slightly edited version of the 1893 “Extract from Adam’s Diary”; it was edited to make it a companion piece to “Eve’s Diary,” and would be collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) [Camfield’s bibliog.].
December 1 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s diary: “This afternoon Mr. Clemens was restless and after he talked business with me, and after he played through The last rose of summer and Wagner’s Wedding March on the orchestrelle, we sat down to play 500 again. We played until tea time, and then after tea time we played until 6:45….We played 500 until eleven o’clock. Mr. Clemens won 14 games [Hill 98; TS 29, MTP]. Note: “Wedding March” from Wagner’s Lohengrin.
December 2 Friday – The National Institute of Arts and Letters, founded in 1898, cast ballots and elected seven members to the first American Academy of Arts and Letters. These were, representing literature: Samuel L. Clemens, William Dean Howells, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and John Hay; representing art: Augustus Saint-Gaudens and John La Farge; representing music, Edward MacDowell. The secretary of the Institute was none other than Robert Underwood Johnson.
December 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka. It may interest you to know that all of half of the letters I get concerning the Joan sketch are from Catholics; & are strongly (even fervently) complimentary, every time.
December 4, after – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Mr. Lee: “No, it’s lovely. I haven’t any suggestions to make” [MTP].
December 6 Tuesday – Gale puts Sam as a guest at George B. Harvey’s dinner for Henry James [Henry James Encyclopedia 683].
December 7 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal contains an entry for this date: “And then Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich came in to ask Mr. Clemens and Jean to go tonight to see a tragedy that he has recently written.” Note: The play was Judith of Bethulia, a Tragedy, which was his dramatization of an earlier poem, “Judith and Holofernes” (1896); Her Journal also contained: “This has been a day of events—for this morning Mr. [Finley Peter] Dunne came for a closeting with Mr. Clemens” [Gribben 16: 1903-1906 Diary, TS 31, MTP]. The New York Times, Dec.
December 8 Thursday – Mary C. Waters wrote to Sam, having read his Joan of Arc article in the Dec. Harper’s. She enclosed an article, no longer extant [MTP].