June 2 Tuesday – Sam left the Harvey residence in Deal, N.J. and returned home to New York at noon. Before leaving, he settled on the name “Innocence at Home” for the new home in Redding [June 3 to Clara].
At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Sturgis.
I am just back this moment, & find yours of May 27. I have been down in Jersey eight days, visiting around among my angel-fishes of that region, & have had a very good time indeed.
June 2 Wednesday — Italian journalist Felice Ferrero visited Stormfield and interviewed Mark Twain for the most popular Italian newspaper in Italy, Corriere della Sera. Zuppello includes the interview in her 2008 paper for American Literary Realism. In part: .
June 20 or 27 — M.A. FitzGerald wrote from Hyde Park asking if Sam could “spare a little time?” as he “must speak with you” about an unspecified matter [MTP].
June 20 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight after dinner as Jean and I sat in the glow of the fire burning on the good big hearth in the living room, Mr. Clemens paced the room and told Jean the story of Japan and her change of government, about the Daimios and the Shogun and the almost spiritual power of the Mikado. The talk was brought about by Mr. Clemens speaking of the Chinese and Japanese working for such low wages that they cannot be admitted to this country for they would underwork and starve out Americans. It’s powerfully good talk.
June 20 Thursday – Sam pulled off a breach of etiquette at 8 a.m. that was widely reported, and one Livy would undoubtedly have scolded him for. New York Times, June 21, p.1, dateline June 20, London:
TWAIN STARTLES LONDON.
Strolls in Bathrobe and Bare Legs from Hotel for a Plunge.
Special Cablegram.
Copyright, 1907, by THE NEW YORK TIMES CO.
June 20 Saturday – In the morning in Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, now in London.
June 20 Sunday - The New York Herald, p. 1, reported Mark Twain’s lawsuit against his former secretary:
MARK TWAIN SUES FORMER SECRETARY
Asks $4,000 Damages and Levies on Property He Gave to Mrs. Ralph W. Ashcroft.
CAUSE OF ACTION SECRET
June 21 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Samuel J. Elder.
I have read your article with great interest—& also with great profit. I am glad to have it, & I thank you.
I was at the meeting you speak of, & offered & explained the two motions I went there to make —then hurried away. But they passed. One of them was the “life & 50 years” proposition.
June 21 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Early the King said: “No dictating today.”
June 21 Friday – When newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic reported on Mark Twain venturing out on the street in his bathrobe (Paine calls it a “heavy brown bath robe,” the papers called it “sky-blue”) Clara Clemens cabled: “MUCH WORRIED. REMEMBER PROPRIETIES” [MTB 1384-5; IVL TS 75]. Sam replied by cable to Clara: “THEY ALL PATTERN AFTER ME. FATHER.” [MTP].
June 21 Sunday – The photograph of Clemens playing cards with Dorothy Harvey and her friend Pauline Martin, and Louise Paine was likely taken this day, the day after their arrival at Stormfield [MT Journal Spring/Fall 2006 p. 25].
The New York Times, p. C2 under “Nearly 10,000 Guests Bidden to Windsor,” ran a final paragraph about Clara Clemens:
June 21 Monday — In Redding, Conn, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore in Hartford.
Dear Brer Whitmo’—
Have you our old Hartford check-books? If you have, will you send them to me? I don’t want the vast one from which we used to pay the robber Paige; it is those from which we paid our household expenses that I want.
June 22 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Jean and I drove over to Marlboro and then trolleyed to Keene in the rain today. It was a nice trip—moist.
Mr. Clemens read more of that satire dwelling on the currency and he made a beautiful allusion to Katherine of Aragon. Dear, foolish, gentle, loving Katherine. Today Mr. Clemens talked about the Japanese battle front being 400 miles long. Grant’s was 1200 miles and Grant was the only General ever, who didn’t hold councils of war.
June 22 Saturday – Sam attended the Royal Garden Party at Windsor, which marked the end of Ascot week. Ten special trains were scheduled between Paddington and Windsor. The Lord Chamberlain issued the invitations. Mark Twain was accompanied by Ralph Ashcroft (left), and Mr. and Mrs. John Henniker Heaton. See insert photo [MTFWE 27].
June 22 Monday – In Redding, Conn., Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Dorothy Quick.
Dear Dorothy: / Mr. Clemens has just left for town, & he asks me to invite your mother & you to come up here on Thursday the second leaving N. Y. Central on the 4:15 train M for Redding. Mr. Clemens & Mr. Paine will be on the same train. Please do not disappoint Mr. Clemens. He sends you much love, & to your mother too. / Yours Ever / I. V. Lyon [MTP].
June 22 Tuesday — Pieter Bausch wrote from Amsterdam to Harper’s about Sam’s non-answers to Bausch’s last letters. Though catalogued to Clemens, it is clearly not to him; see July 2 Duneka to Clemens [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d July 6, ‘09”
June 23 Friday – Tuckey puts this day as the last work Sam did on “Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes” [135]. Note: also, Starrett, MT Encyc. 736.
June 23 Sunday – At Brown’s Hotel in London, Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
I have been having a rather perfect good time since we reached England last Tuesday morning. The first greeting was a hail & a hurrah from the stevedores on the dock; & since then I have climbed all the rounds of the ladder & shaken hands with all the grades, from the stevedores on up to king & queen.
June 23 Tuesday – John J. McCowan for the Actors Society of America wrote from NYC. He planned to enter vaudeville dressed up as Mark Twain, if Clemens had no objection [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Answd / June 29, 08; Please refer him to Miss Elizabeth Marbury 1430 Broadway”
Mr. & Mrs. Whitelaw Reid sent an engraved invitation to the wedding of his daughter Jean Reid to John Hubert Ward on June 23 at Dorchester House [MTP].
June 23 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.
Dear Joe:
I have escaped the interviewer thus far. It has been difficult, still I have escaped.
The public probably think the Ashcroft incident a very trifling matter, & the newspapers doubtless think the same. That is my protection.
June 24 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell. After several pages of bile dumped about Theodore Roosevelt, though he believed “praise & blame” were “unwarrantable terms when applied to coffee-mills”—in other words, man has no more control over his acts than a coffee-mill—Sam wrote of his work and daughters:
I began a new book here in this enchanting solitude 35 days ago. I have done 33 full days’ work on it. To-day I have not worked. There was another day in this present month wherein I did not work—you will know that date without my telling you.
June 24 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam gave Lyon instructions to write Ralph W. Ashcroft about a perceived “insulting advertisement” by Harpers, which stated that he was going to withdraw his Christian Science book from publication. Would Ashcroft look in Publisher’s Weekly for April 1903? [MTP].
Sam also replied to the June 22 of Brander Matthews (the note sent by hand to 121 E. 18 , NYC).