August 9 Friday – In the evening at Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Miss Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J. some five hours after she’d departed from her Aug. 5 to 9 visit.
Dorothy dear, one of these days I am going to write you a letter the first time I write my other children, but not now, now I haven’t time, because I haven’t anything to do, & I can’t write letters except when I am rushed.
August 10 Saturday – Saturday Evening Post ran an anonymous article, “Boswellizing Mark Twain,” p. 25. Tenney: “Samuel Johnson had his biographer, and now Albert Bigelow Paine has taken on the task with MT, who is amiable and kindly, and provides him with cigars” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.9].
Elvelena W. Morford wrote from England to Sam, glad to know of his safe return; The Morfords were still touring England [MTP].
August 11 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick he finished on Aug. 15.
This isn’t a letter, Dorothy dear, yet I know I ought to write you a letter, because I would write you every time I wrote the other children, & I’ve just finished a letter to Clara. But I never could keep promises very well. However, I shall certainly write you a letter before very long. I wrote to Clara:
August 12 Monday – Emilie R. Rogers wrote from Fairhaven, Mass. to Sam, feeling “a little neglected.” H.H. Rogers was “in worse shape than he cared to acknowledge to anybody” and had spoken of Clemens often [MTHHR 632].
August 13 Tuesday – William F. Saunders wrote from St. Louis to Sam, offering more on the invitation to take a trip on the steamboat Alton with the party of governors [MTP].
Charles E. Wark wrote from Parker House, Boston to advise Sam of Clara’s continued improvement, weight gain of seven pounds and “great improvement” of voice. She was not overworking; no answer needed since Wark heard that Sam hated to write letters [MTP].
August 15 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Aug.11th to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J.
August 16 Friday – Dorothy Quick wrote from the Truell Inn, Plainfield, N.J. to Sam.
August 17 Saturday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick that he added to on Aug. 18, 19, 21 and 22. For this day, he drew a sketch of an insect:
Do you know what that is? It is a butterfly. Drawn by the artist. The gifted artist. I am the gifted artist. Self-taught.
No, I find it is a grasshopper. It is for your collection. Miss Lyon has nailed it to box, with pins. It took more chloroform than was good for it. And so it is sleeping with its fathers [MTAq 53].
August 18 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Aug. 17 to Dorothy Quick.
We talk about you all the time. You are not a large subject, but a very entertaining one.
“Would I like to have you read to me?” Indeed I should. I couldn’t like anything better.
Don’t you be troubled about your hand, Dorothy. It is a good hand, & has the chiefest of all merits: that it is as easy to read as print.
August 19 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. in the morning, Sam added to his Aug. 17, 18 to Dorothy Quick.
“Just a WEEK” since I saw you! Why, you little, humbug, it is over 3 months; even Miss Lyon, who never gets anything straight but corkscrews & potato peelings & things like that, concedes that its’s upwards of two months. What is the matter with your veracity-mill?
===
Night.
August 20 Tuesday – The New York Times, p.3, announced “on good authority” that Rudyard Kipling was chosen for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1907, and that Mark Twain had been suggested for same.
Joseph T. Brown for Knickerbocker Trust wrote to acknowledge Sam’s “note of the 18th,” placing an order for 1,000 shares of Utah Consolidated [MTP].
August 21 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Aug. 17, 18, 19 to Dorothy Quick.
The Busy Bee
About to-morrow or next day there’ll be a note from the same, I hope, containing that picture of the same & me which the same Kodak’d when the same was here. I suppose you will return to Plainfield for your birthday?
If a parcel arrives there from Harper & Brothers in a day or two, it is for your birthday.
August 22 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Aug. 17 to 21 to Dorothy Quick. “Thursday, 22. I’m collecting red cigar-belts for you against your coming—but I love you notwithstanding” [MTAq 54].
Sam also wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson in Staten Island, N.Y.: “I am very glad, my dear Miss T. to learn that the option has been paid at last; & since you as desire, you can send your check for the small advance I made you, but do not do it if it can inconvenience you, for there is no hurry” [MTP].
August 23 Friday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We went over to the Deacon’s for tea this afternoon. This is the 2nd Friday that she has had a “bridge party” and we have been bidden for tea.
August 24 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Lucia Hull came this morning to have a chat with the King and he kept her until luncheon time, talking his gospel to her. She held to her own philosophy like the staunch little maid that she is and she stayed to luncheon at my invitation and then we jiggered over to her house to see her mother… [MTP 92].
August 25 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam went to a luncheon and talked for two hours, as related by the following letter to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
August 26 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Dorothy Quick he finished Aug. 27.
At last, you dear little tardy rascal! This morning I was going to stick up a notice on the back porch:
LOST CHILD!
Answers to the name of Dorothy.
Strayed, Stolen or Mislaid.
DISAPPEARED
On or about the 9th of August.
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August 27 Tuesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Aug. 26 to Dorothy Quick.
Yes, Wednesday will be perfectly convenient—and we’ll have you a whole week, which is grand! Provided you don’t get homesick—& we do hope you won’t. We’ll do our very best to keep you happy & content. Miss Lyon will arrange about the trains with your mother by telephone, if she can; otherwise by letter.
August 28 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick: “Dorothy dear,
I am writing you a real letter, and it will go to you in a day or two. But this is only just a line, to send you my love & say how glad we are that you are coming, and that we can have you one day earlier—which is delightful” [MTP; MTAq 47]. Note: MTAq erroneously puts this to “early August 1907,” but there was no change of plans on the earlier visit to come one day earlier. MTP puts it at Aug. 28, which is judged to be correct.
August 29 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today I went to spend the day with Santa who appeared suddenly from Norfolk. She is beautifuller than she has ever been, for Boston agrees with her and her intense happiness in her life and in her art are making for her an existence that is ideal. It was a scurry to get off—a scurry to get my home train and to bed I am—exhausted. Mr. Baker went in on my train and he has a proper appreciation of the King. So we talked forever [MTP TS 96]. Note: George Barr Baker.
August 30 Friday – H.H. Rogers wrote from Fairhaven, Mass. to Sam.
August 31 Saturday – Sam sent a telegram to Dorothy Quick:
September – Bookman (NY) ran a sour article, “Mark Twain’s Publicity R.I.P.” p. 9-10. Tenney: “‘Mark Twain’s work,’ said one British writer when British applause was at its loudest, ‘has absolutely no connection with literature,’ and some of it ‘has for sheer concentrated vulgarity never been beaten’; and it was a pity, said another, that Oxford did not honor Henry James instead. The American press reported only England’s praise when MT visited.
September 1 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Albert Langen.
September 2 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: The King had been up in my study telephoning to Dorothy [Quick] this morning, & when we went back to his room to go on with the morning business we found the smell of tobacco pretty strong & he said it smelt “as if a stuffy old archangel had been in there”. I told him that Santa & I love the smell of an archangel. He said “yes, the smell of young ones, but not the stale old ones.”