May 8 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick.
(Joan of Arc’s Day.)
Your letter came last night, dear, & brought me such a disappointment. I am so sorry you have a cold, but glad you are taking proper care of it. It would not be wise for you to make a journey in the draughty cars at such a time.
May 8 Saturday — H.N. Allen wrote from Seaford, Del., relating on a recent trip to NYC he and his sister were often mistaken for Mark Twain and daughter Clara. He’d heard the same thing in Virginia City, Nevada and San Francisco. He sent his photo (not in file) and asked for one in return ]. Note: “Ans’ May 18, “09”
May 9 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
dear, there has not been a single week of the past 48 which has not brought me reason to say “how grateful I am that Livy is out of it!”
How did she ever live in this execrable world? & why did she love it & wish to stay in it?
Jean does not know why I do not go to Dublin, & I do not want her to find out. I am staying here because Clara is to be operated on for appendicitis to-morrow afternoon & 4 o’clock.
May 9 Thursday – At 9 a.m. [May 14 to Jean] Sam and Isabel Lyon took a train for Baltimore, Maryland, where he would be a guest of Governor Edwin Warfield (1848-1920) and deliver a benefit lecture in Annapolis. Warfield had been mentioned as a future presidential candidate. It had been in Sam’s plans at least since Apr. 22, when he wrote of it to Jean. Though she did not know him, Emma Warfield (Mrs. Edwin Warfield), a member of the First Presbyterian Church, had written asking Mark Twain to speak for a church benefit.
May 9 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Sturgis.
Dear Miss Dorothy:
May 9 Sunday — Sam recorded learning on May 9 or 10 of Lyon’s use of his funds to renovate her house, before his $1,500 loan:
About the 9th or 10th Paine & I started to New York on business, & Lounsbury drove us to the railway station. On the way, reference was made to the cost of the rehabilitation of Miss Lyon’s house—$1500, Lounsbury said—
“Fifteen hundred? Why, it cost thirty-five hundred!”
November 1 Tuesday – The Earl of Norbury (William Graham-Toler) wrote from London to Sam. I cannot tell you how pleased I was to get your kind and fiery letter, and to hear that your powerful pen will be wielded in the cause of humanity. Certainly the Congo Reform agitation is going ahead well now. I was aware of the very great loss you had sustained, but feared to reopen the wound by any allusion to it, but as you have yourself referred to Mrs Clemens’ death, I feel that I may be allowed to express my very great and sincere sympathy… [MTP]. Note: on the env. Sam wrote: “For my tin box.
November 1 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
November 1 Friday – Overland Monthly ran a sketch of Mark Twain by Alice Resor, accompanied by excerpts of IA reprinted from the magazine’s Oct. 1868 issue [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 192].
November 1 Sunday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer.
You sweet Margaret, I have been trying to get Ashcroft shot & I went to Police Commissioner General Bingham about it, but he was full of objections & lame excuses & said it would make too much talk. I have known Bingham ever since he was our military attache at the German Court 18 years ago, & yet the very first time I ask a little favor of him he hunts up excuses.
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 10 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to the American Academy of Arts & Letters.
“I desire to vote yea upon the question of electing Mr. William Milligan Slone [sic Sloane] as a member of the Academy, to fill the vacancy caused by the declination of Mr. William James” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Clemens went to see Mr. Charles Frohman this morning about Miss Mary Lawton’s theatrical affairs” [MTP TS 33].
November 10 Saturday – Sam wrote of playing billiards until 1:15 a.m.: “I got but poor sleep afterwards & was pretty tired next day. I stayed home at night [Nov. 10] & did not go to the Alden feed. Those who went to it did not reach their beds until 4 a.m.—Howells & Paine included—but Aldrich got here at 2 a.m.” [Nov. 13 to Jean].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
T.B. Aldrich is so disappointing in appearance & in qualities of all kinds that go to make up the literary man bearing a high reputation.
November 10 Sunday – Poultney Bigelow sent a postcard to Miss Lyon: “…accepts with delight for Tuesday Nov. 19th” [MTP].
John A. Joyce wrote from Washington, D.C.. Joyce broke down when reading in the NAR of Susy Clemens’ last words, because it brought the memory of his own daughter’s death 20 years before [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Nov. 13, ‘07”
J. Van Vechten Olcott wrote from NYC to thank Sam for letting him know what the Tribune supplement published this day [MTP].
November 10 Tuesday – Sam attended the Danbury, Conn. trial of the two burglars, Charles Hoffman and Henry Williams. The New York Times, Nov. 11, 1908, p. 5 reported on the trial:
TWAIN’S BURGLARS ON TRIAL.
———
Author on Witness Stand Identifies Silverware They Stole from Him.
November 10 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to an unidentified person.
What went with about $10,000,
It now appears that I had 3 enemies on the Milk Products Board, whereas I supposed 2 of them were my friends. They pretended to be. They bought-in the dead Plasmon Co. & paid $7,000 of my money for it when they knew that its only valuable asset-—the patents—had reverted to the London Company.
They sold me $5,000 M. P. stock for $2,500 cash, without asking me whether I wanted it or not.
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 11 Sunday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich left 21 Fifth Ave. after a weekend stay with Twain. He [Lyon to H. Whitmore Nov. 12].
November 11 Monday – Fatout lists a dinner speech for Sam at the Homeopathic Society, N.Y.C. but gives no particulars and none were found [MT Speaking 678].
Howard Kyle wrote on Players notepaper to ask Sam if he might bring a photo taken of Clemens in the Players Booth at the Actors Fund Fair last May, for his signature [MTP].
An unidentified person wrote to Sam (only the env. Survives; Sam wrote on it, “Invite the Laffans”) [MTP].
November 11 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “More trial—a weary day in court. Benar stayed to go with me, and be with me. Paine came for billiards with the King. At dinner I went to pieces” [MTP: IVL TS 79].
The New York Times, p. 4, reported on the sentencing of Mark Twain’s burglars:
TWAIN BURGLARS SENTENCED.
———
Men Who Broke Into Samuel L. Clemens’s Home Get Prison Terms.
November 11 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Miss Lillian I. Stivers, Niles, Calif.
Dear Miss Lillian: / Surprises are frequent, & I am used to them, but a granddaughter of Denis McCarthy is a new kind, & away out of the common order. Pleasant, too. He was entitled to all good things, & a granddaughter is the top-stone of the pyramid, I judge. I should rank her there if I had one.
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].