October 17 Saturday – Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Geo. Neilgruen )
Gustave Kobbé ) From Harper & Bros, N.Y. October 17 To discuss my new copyright law
Mr. Phayre )
Note: Gustav Kobbé (1856-1918) was an author in his own right, with at least two books on opera. At the time of his accidental death from a hydroplane, Kobbe was the music and art critic of the NY Herald. John F. Phayne of Harpers.
October 18 Sunday – Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Miss Ethel Newcomb Interior N.Y. (& Vienna) October 18-21
October 19 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “This servant question is an anxiety. The running of the house is a big business. It almost commercializes one—first now the little house maid who has come and leans over me to say that she cannot stay unless she is able to go home nights to sleep with her mother. The quaint wee soul! I’m letting her go home to her mother’s bed tonight; but also she goes to talk to her mother and to try to make herself and her mother believe that she will get over her homesickness. Poor wee soul!
October 20 Tuesday – Sam was at Col. Harvey’s “country house” in Deal Beach, N.J. [IVL Oct. 19].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: A good part of the burglar alarm system was installed yesterday. The gong is just outside my door, the indicator is just in my bath room, and last night I slept as I have not slept for nearly 5 weeks, for there has been no night since Sept. 18th without a terrified mental shriek in it. It is not fear, it is a pathological condition.
Such deeps of loneliness with the King away!
October 21 Wednesday – Sam went to New York City and attended a banquet for Lord Northcliffe at the Union Club, given by Leigh Hunt. He wrote of the evening in his Oct. 23. That excerpt:
I stopped over in New York, night before last, for a banquet to Lord Northcliff, given at the Union club by Leigh Hunt. I didn’t go until 10 P.M. & so it didn’t tire me.
October 22 Thursday – Sam went to Deal, N.J. to “talk business” with George B. Harvey, and planned to stay “2 or 3 days,” but left at noon, Friday, Oct. 23 [Oct. 23 to Jean] .
In Deal, N.J., probably on this evening, Sam wrote to daughter Clara.
Deal, N.J.
Saturday eve.
October 23 Friday – In Deal, N.J. Sam wrote to daughter Jean, giving some account of his activities for the last few days.
Dear Jean: / I came down here yesterday to stay 2 or 3 days, & talk business with Col. Harvey.
It has suddenly turned cold. Yesterday it was fine weather, today is like November.
I stopped over in New York, night before […see this excerpt in Oct. 21 entry]
October 24 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).
Thank you very much, & I hope to take advantage of the invitation.
October 25 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: We all had tea with Mother this afternoon, and after we got back the King read the copyright problem he has been working on. He was lying in wait for Benar and me, and Benar flew upstairs with his white legs, not waiting for me to say that the King was waiting in the library. These impulsive creatures are so much the best in the world, and the best example of it is the King, the beautiful King [MTP: IVL TS 72].
October 26 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added a line to his Oct. 24, 26 to Frances Nunnally: “Monday, 26th. Now if you are—however, I am interrupted” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to William Dean Howells.
Oh, I say! Where are you hiding, & why are you hiding? You promised to come here & you didn’t keep your word. (This sounds like astonishment—but don’t be misled by that.)
October 27 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added one word to his Oct. 24 to Frances Nunnally, “Interrupted.” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Dorothy Sturgis.
October 28 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 24, 26, 27 to Frances Nunnally.
“28th. It was a very very pleasant interruption—It was the mail, & brought the pink ribbons. Thank you, dear, ever so much. They will make a charming decoration for the enlarged picture” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to William Wymark Jacobs. Paine introduces this letter:
October 29 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 24, 26, 27, 28 to Frances Nunnally.
October 30 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margery H. Clinton.
Dear Miss Margery: / Good, you’re coming! Well, I am glad. Even dern glad, as Pontius Pilate used to say. I think it was Pontius; at any rate it was the one that wrote Paradise Lost & was eventually burned by the Church for falling down the mountain & breaking the tables of stone. I never cared for him, although an ancestor. He ought to have known he was in no condition to carry things down a mountain & everybody looking at him. / With love & thanks … [MTP].
October 31 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam finished his Oct. 24, 26, 27, 28, 29 to Frances Nunnally.
[written in the side margin of page 1:] Oct. 31. I haven’t finished this letter yet, but Ashcroft wants to play billiards; so I will start it along & finish it another time. With very much love. SLC
[caption on an enclosed photograph] Affectionate greetings from this triangle, or trilogy, or whatever its right name is.
[caption on an enclosed photograph] Posing—for admiration. SLC
November 1908 [not defined by Fears as November]
Harper’s Weekly published an article, “From Hawaii to Mark Twain’s Billiard-Room,” p. 27. Tenney: “Photograph of a koa-wood mantelpiece donated by friends in Hawail, for his home in Redding, Connecticut” [Tenney, ALR Second Annual Supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1980) 175]. Note: the mantel piece was a gift from Franz (“Frank”) Nickolous Otremba, woodcarver in Hawaii. See insert; & discussion of in Nov. 30 entry.
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 2 Monday – Gribben gives us a nugget from Sam’s A.D. for the day regarding George Bernard Shaw: “Mark Twain was aghast that Shaw’s biographer ‘wildly imagined a lot of resemblances’ between Shaw’s philosophy and Twain’s ‘What is Man?’ (2 November 1908 AD, MTP)” [638].
November 3 Tuesday – On or about Nov. 3 Sam sent the library notice with receipt for $1 to Mai Rogers Coe (Mrs. William R. Coe) [MTP]. Note: see Sam’s new guestbook below:
Name Address Date Remarks
Wm. R. Coe
L. Lanier Winslow
Mrs. Mai Rogers Coe ) New York City November 3
Clemens acquired another case of Queen Anne whisky [L-A MS]. Note: see June 8, 1907 for the full list of acquisition dates of whisky , intended as ammunition against Isabel Lyon.
November 4 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Berlin, Germany.
November 5 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam sent a telegram to President of the Pilgrims, N.Y. chapter.
President of the Pilgrims:
New York
November 6 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to the Redding Court. “This is to certify that I have examined & identified as my property the silver taken from my house by force in the early morning of September 18, 1908. / Respectfully submitted to the honorable Court” /… [MTP].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified man.
Dear Sir: / I note this passage in the letter sent you by Mr. Ashley:
November 7 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. on this day or Nov. 8 Sam sent another receipt on his library notice to Frederick A. Duneka for $1 [MTP].
Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Mrs. Lillian Duneka Also her husband Of Harper & Brothers November 7-8
November 8 Sunday – Charles Este wrote to ask Sam if he would “drop a word” to Mrs. Catherine Starbuck a 90 year old friend of his in Nantucket, Mass. He enclosed a note from the lady wondering if Clemens had decided not to finish his Autobiography [MTP]. Note: “Ans. Dec. 11 MLH” [his address on note paper 4111 Baltimore Ave. City is not given; such an address exists in Phila., Kansas City, Mo. & others].
Friedrich Henke wrote from Berlin, another letter in German to Sam [MTP]. Note: Not translated.
November 9 Monday – Arthur J. Burdick for Gateway Gazette wrote from Beaumont, Calif., having heard the rumor that Clemens contemplated living in California. He promoted the city and wrote he was sending “a paper telling something of Beaumont” [MTP]. Note: “Ans. Nov. 17 MLH”
Frederick A. Duneka wrote from NYC to Sam. “It was very beautiful—our visit—just the happiest kind of times….even the cats seem to be dressed up for the occasion and to join in the welcome…. I am looking into the Mark Twain Spring Water scheme” [MTP].