May 19 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Orchestrelle put up today. / Mr. Paine & Miss Hobby are to arrive today” [MTP TS 72]. Note: the Aeolian Co. disassembled, shipped, and reassembled the Orchestrelle, from NY to Dublin, and returned it to NY after the season. The arrival of the biographer and stenographer on May 20 means Clemens did not dictate for his autobiography until Monday, May 21.
The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day
May 19 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Much talk, tea down at the club. Oh, so stupid” [MTP TS 57].
May 19 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Helen S. Allen in Hamilton, Bermuda.
I am so sorry, you dear child! You must be pretty desolate, now, with so many of your pets gone. I hope the disaster will not spoil the fancy dress dance for you.
May 19 Wednesday — At 7:20 a.m. in his home at 3 East 78th in NYC, Henry Huttleston Rogers died following a stroke. Clemens was on his way to visit Rogers without knowing of the death.
The New York Times, May 20, p.1, reported on the death of Rogers and Sam’s shock at learning the news:
H. H. ROGERS DEAD, LEAVING $50,000,000
Apoplexy Carries Off the Financier Famous in Standard Oil, Railways, Gas, and Copper.
ONLY HIS WIFE WITH HIM
May – Sam gave his autograph to an unidentified person: “Very Truly Yours / SL. Clemens / (Mark Twain) / May/05.” [MTP].
May – Poultney Bigelow wrote a short note to Sam from Malden, N.Y.. “Bless you—best of Sublunary Benefactors—long years to you—full years—happy years for the sake of your fellow humans” [MTP].
Human Life published “Mark Twain—Dean of Our Humorists,” by William A. Graham, p. 1- 2. Tenney: “A popular, appreciative account, chiefly of the Hartford years. Mentions conversations with MT and hearing him speak at a Thanksgiving-Day dinner at the YMCA in 1888 o 1889” [“A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 190].
Human Life published “Mark Twain—Dean of Our Humorists,” by William A. Graham, p. 1- 2. Tenney: “A popular, appreciative account, chiefly of the Hartford years. Mentions conversations with MT and hearing him speak at a Thanksgiving-Day dinner at the YMCA in 1888 o 1889” [“A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 190].
May – Edward A. Kimball’s article, “Mark Twain, Mrs. Eddy, and Christian Science,” ran in Cosmopolitan, p. 35-41. Tenney: “A reply to MT’s Christian Science by ‘a prominent Christian Science author’” [44].
May – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed a copy of LM to an unidentified person: “Mark Twain /. I published this book at my own expense, as an experiment in economy. It cost me fifty-six thousand dollars before the first copy issued from the press. / SLC / May, 1908.”
Sam discussed The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (1737-1809) with Albert Bigelow Paine, who quotes Twain:
May -— Sam noted in his after Sept. 25, 1909 letter that during this month, “Discovery of evidence proving Lioness a thief,” referring to Isabel Lyon.
May 2 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Duneka, Maj. Leigh and Mr. Larkin dined here with Mr. Clemens. Mr. Clemens had a splendid working day. Mother and I dined at Cecchina’s and it was pleasant. The people were quite interesting.
Just before dinner this evening when I followed Mr. Clemens down the stairs, his head was more beautiful than ever, in its living luminous golden silver. It is a golden silver, for there is such a wondrous light in it, a light that white hair never has [MTP: TS 55].
Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: Treatment. Paid
May 2 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Edith Elsie Baker about the Actors’ Fund Fair flap:
I am back from the South, & find your letter which has given me deep & unqualified pleasure.
May 2 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Headache. So ill all day, for I wept without control for hours last night, because I was exhausted, and the fact that Santa [Clara] misunderstood all my efforts, in working over the house. My anxiety over the finishings, my interest in my search for the right thing for the King’s house has all been misinterpreted, and the child says I am trying to ignore her. All my effort has been to please her, to keep her from the dreary search of hours and hours to find the right thing, or shape or color.
May 2 Sunday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).
Dear Mrs. Rogers: / I shall arrive at noon next Friday, & go at once down town on business, & back to No. 3 for dinner, provided there will be a bed for me & no extra charge. I return home next day. I’m due at the Jerome banquet Friday evening at 10.
If there’s no vacant bed, or if you are to be away Fairhavenward, will you please telephone me here when you receive this?
My telephone address is
May 20 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, still in N.Y.C. recovering from an appendectomy.
dear, to get a letter from you was a happy surprise; I was not expecting so dear & rich a benefaction.
May 20 Sunday – On or after this date in Dublin, N.H., Sam replied to Roi Cooper Megrue’s May 19:
May 20 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: King and I went to town on the 11:50. AB left earlier on the 8:30. King and I lunched at The Brevoort, lamb stew and beer, and such a good luncheon he found it. He dined at a David Munro Dinner at the Players for Col. Harvey who sails for England on Wednesday. In the afternoon we ran around to Martiging’s Studio to see the model for the Fulton Memorial. It is beautiful [MTP TS 57-58].
Charlotte Teller Johnson wrote on “The Broztell” stationery, NYC to Sam. In part:
Image
May 20 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y.
May 20 Thursday —- M.W. Thompson for the Ionian Lecture Course, Univ. of Illinois wrote to ask Sam to lecture during the coming school year [MTP]. Note “Ans’d May 26, ‘09”
May 21 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Mr. Clemens spends too much time over his work. Hours & hours & hours he sits writing with a wonderful light in his eyes. The flush of a girl in his cheeks and oh the lustre of his hair. It is too terribly perishably beautiful. It is no wonder that his tread is light as a spirit’s, for the great power of his brain seems to draw him up and to give him his delicacy of step [MTP TS 59].
May 21 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam began dictating again for his Autobiography [MTHHR 607n1]. Sam’s A.D. of this day, “The Jumping Frog” gives a short history of the famous frog tale; it was selected for MTE [143-48].
Clemens’ A.D. for the day: Early experiences as an author—Publishing of “The Jumping Frog” in volume of sketches—Meeting George W. Carleton in Luzerno. His apology for having refused to publish Clemens’ book of sketches. Difficulties attending the bringing out of “The Innocents Abroad” [MTP Autodict2].
Clemens’ A.D. for the day: Early experiences as an author—Publishing of “The Jumping Frog” in volume of sketches—Meeting George W. Carleton in Luzerno. His apology for having refused to publish Clemens’ book of sketches. Difficulties attending the bringing out of “The Innocents Abroad” [MTP Autodict2].
May 21 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today the King went to see Jean, making a day of it and came home weary at 7 o’clock. He had a talk with Dr. Sharp who said that only physicians know that the present Czar is an epileptic; people would pity him more if they knew of his terrible malady [MTP TS 58].
May 21 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Gloucester, Mass.
Thursday night.
May 21 Friday — At 10 a.m. Sam was a pallbearer at the funeral of Henry Huttleston Rogers, at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, Park Ave. and 34th Street, NYC. Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer conducted the services, aided by the Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, the church’s current pastor. The body was taken for burial by train to Fairhaven, arriving in the evening [NY Times, May 22, p. 16, “Simple Funeral for H.H. Rogers”’].
May 22 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
We’re up in the hills now. All of us but Santissima. A little note this morning from Miss Gordon says that she [Clara Clemens] is improving wonderfully after her operation. Fighting a headache, I am too dull to write what was in my mind.
May 22 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Mr. Clemens is sitting down stairs in the hall revising the auto-ms. & chuckling with delight over the account of the speech he made 20 years ago at the Whittier dinner. “Oh, it will do to go into print before I die.” —and the couch shakes with him & his laughter He sits in his white clothes—so beautiful he is—so pure—and he calls out that he must begin at once to read it aloud to me” [MTP TS 72-73].
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