The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day

November 2 Saturday — Emma N. Warfield (Mrs. Edwin Warfield) wrote to Miss Lyon: “Dr Clemens and you have interested me delightfully and I am so pleased that such a busy man should stop even for a moment to think of me” [MTP].

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 2 Tuesday — Janet Duff Gordon Ross wrote from Florence to congratulate Sam on Clara’s marriage and to ask if he was ever going to return to Italy [MTP].

November 20 Sunday – Sam also wrote to Sebastiano V. Cecchi, letter not extant but referred to in Cecchi’s Dec. 16.

November 20 Tuesday – Sam wrote thanks from 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. to McClure, Phillips & Co., publishers of: The Viper of Milan (1906) by Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long (Campbell; 1888-1952), pseud. “Marjorie Bowen” (see Gribben p. 418).

November 20 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: A reporter from the Brooklyn Eagle has been here. / Frederick Boyd Stevenson. So far the best man to represent the press. Mr. Clemens was willing to see him [MTP TS 120]. Note: F.B. Stevenson (1859-1938) retired in 1930 after editing and writing a Sunday column, “Top of the News” for the Eagle.  He was author of The Amalgamated Americans and a contributor to magazines of economics and political subjects. He specialized in national, international and civic affairs.

November 20 Friday – Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Lord Northcliffe ) London ) Nov. 20-21

Col. George Harvey ) New York

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Very bad headache. / Lord Northcliffe and Col. Harvey came up for the night” [MTP: IVL TS 80].

November 20 Saturday — Sam met Albert Bigelow Paine at the train station in N.Y.C. to board the Bermudian for the voyage to Bermuda. In Robert Underwood Johnson’s Remembered Yesterdays, p.133, we find the following, which denotes that he had time to go to the funeral for Richard Watson Gilder: “As Mark Twain entered the Church of the Ascension at the funeral service, he said to a friend, ‘I wish that I were that man lying in there’.” Note: Paine in MTB does not mention Sam attending the funeral.

November 21 Wednesday – Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: Father Hawley, and the meeting at which he presided in Hartford, 30 years ago—showing the ill effects of having too many orators when trying to raise money by public speaking [MTP Autodict2].

Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote to Lyon asking about his spectacles left there during his visit [MTP].

November 21 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam began a letter to Mary B. Rogers that he finished on Nov. 29.

Well, dear, you are a brilliant little rascal, & the flashes spurt up all along your sentence-wires, interval by interval, & if I had a mile-perspective on them I should think it was a trolley, blue- sparking its way down the distances——but

November 21 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam inscribed a copy of Eve’s Diary to Mary Elizabeth Milner Harmsworth (Mrs. Alfred Harmsworth); Baroness Northcliffe; 1868- 1963): “To Lady Northcliffe with the compliments of the Author. / Adam at Eve’s Grave: / ‘Wheresoever she was, There was Eden’ (page 109)./ Nov 21/08” [MTP].  

Sam’s new guestbook:  

  Name Address Date Remarks

Commodore D. Dow, R.N.R. R.M.S. “Caronia” Nov. 21-24

November 21 Sunday — Clemens and Albert Bigelow Paine were aboard the Bermudian en route to Hamilton, Bermuda. The ship encountered rough seas and Paine suffered from seasickness [D. Hoffman 135]. Note: I have not come across one instance where Clemens ever suffered from seasickness.

November 22 Tuesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Katharine I. Harrison. “This Aeolian bill is correct. Will you please send a check for it to the Co. for me, & greatly oblige …. A week from to-day I expect to move into the house, & shall expect to have Jean with me two days later. Then I shall be glad!” [MTHHR 582].

Sam also wrote to William Hawk that the border (mourning) of his note explained why he could not come; he’d mislaid the invitation after answering it promptly, and so was answering it again [MTP].

November 22 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam responded to C.F. Bertholf’s Nov. 16 question: Stories he refers to is in one of the volumes of sketches published by the Harpers” [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs this as “on or after 16 November.” Six days estimated postal time is allowed here.

November 22 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Ray. 3.15” [MTP TS 32].

George Dewey wrote to Sam, advising receipt of “your recent letter, I have to state that I resigned several months ago from the Advisory Directorate of the Oppenheimer Institute, but that while I was a director I had no personal knowledge of the workings of the cure” [MTP].

Max Lowenthal wrote a postcard from Vienna, Austria to send birthday wishes [MTP].

November 22 Thursday – Clemens’ A.D. of this day included: The international copyright bills before Congress in ’86—Clemens supported the Chase bill—The young physician (now very old) who by drawing quaint pictures and writing original poems persuaded his little patients to take his odious mixtures, & who afterwards had these published in book form & is still living on income from his book, as he is a citizen of an honest country, Germany— Clemens will be 71 next week—His copyrights will soon begin to expire, therefore he must continue writing [MTP Autodict2].

November 22 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a short note to Kate D. Riggs. “It was a noble feed & a noble company, and you are a dear. Heaven bless you! / MARK” [MTP: Nora Archibald Smith, Kate Douglas Wiggin as Her Sister Knew Her, 1925 p.139]. See Rigg’s Nov. 24 reply.

November 22 Sunday – In Redding, Conn., Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Helen Keller.

Dear Miss Keller:

November 22 Monday — The Bermudian arrived in the islands on a rainy day. They took rooms at the Hamilton Hotel. D. Hoffman writes:

November 23 Wednesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.

November 23  Friday – The Charlton Public Library banned Eve’s Diary, and the New York Times reported the story on page one, Nov. 24:

BAR MARK TWAIN’S BOOK.

———

A Massachusetts Librarian Draws the Line at “Eve’s Diary.”

Special to The New York Times.

November 23 Saturday – Hamilton W. Mabie’s article, “Mark Twain the Humorist,” ran in Outlook (NY), p. 648-53. Tenney: “A general, admiring discussion of the man and his works, generally uncritical though noting the ephemeral quality of some of his writing. On p. 648, full- page photograph of MT” [44].

Joseph B. Gilder for Putnam’s Monthly wrote to Miss Lyon about Sam sitting for a portrait [MTP].