The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day

November 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. where he wrote to Robert Bacon, Asst. Secretary of State, who was seeking more information about England’s willingness to act against Leopold.

November 28 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal (in Hartford): “Today I came out here to beloved Harriet Enders. The children are wonderful. John, Bunny, Ostrom, and Elira—yes, they are wonderful” [MTP TS 148].

November 28 Thursday – Thanksgiving – Sam lunched at H.H. Roger’s home where he likely saw Mary B. Rogers, and thought her “very delightful” [Nov. 29 to Mary Rogers; Dec. 1 to Jean]. He dined out in the evening and returned home at 11 p.m., with a neighbor (unspecified), played billiards until 4 a.m.

Helen Campbell wrote from Camden, NJ to beg a loan of $500 from Sam [MTP].

November 28 Saturday – Elizabeth Wallace describes the events of her last day’s stay at Stormfield:

November 29 Tuesday – On or about this day Sam moved into his new home at 21 Fifth Avenue in N.Y.C. and daughter Jean arrived as well.

November 29 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to John P. Cowan.

Dear Mr. Cowan: / Health to you! Sometimes, in the past two years, I have asked the Harpers’permission to say a word outside—for print—but I don’t now, for the applications these past two days amount to a sort of flood. Privately, between you and me, I did not suppose there was any Clemens blood in the world, outside of my family and J. Ross Clemens of St. Louis. Adam was the only ancestor I had ever heard of. / Sincerely yours … [MTP].

November 29 Thursday – Thanksgiving – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to John Y. MacAlister in London (incoming not extant).

It was good to hear from you. Particularly to-day, which is Thanksgiving Day, sacred to humbug & hypocrisy; & so a letter from a sincere source comes as a breath of fresh air to the person who has fallen down the privy.

November 29 Friday – Sam finished his Nov. 21 to Mary B. Rogers.

Mariechen, I didn’t say sins, I said it covered a multitude of charms. And it is perfectly true. I wish you wouldn’t be always misquoting me & discouraging all my attempts to learn how to be veracious. For I do so want to learn how, dear.

I don’t know where you are but I am guessing that you are in Tuxedo. You were very delightful yesterday./ Affectionately / Your Uncle Mark [MTP].

November 29 Sunday – Elizabeth Wallace ended her visit and left Stormfield on an early train. 

November 3 Thursday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie.

In our sad circumstances I am not privileged to be present Nov. 22d , but I greatly want to renew the acquaintanceship with Mr. Morley, & I would like to come some time—in the day or in the evening—& see him & the Carnegie’s when there is an absence of formal company.

Does such a time happen—in your house?

November 3 Saturday – Either this day or the next Sam took a train trip of an hour-plus and visited daughter Jean in her Katonah, N.Y. sanitarium [Nov. 5 to Emilie Rogers].

Andrew Carnegie wrote to Sam. “So glad to learn that you are yourself again, back in town running about able ‘to take sustenance’ . Delighted to attend at dinner. / I hope we are going to snow under that Reprobate Hearst—His article upon Gilder roused my ire. / Yours Ever…” [MTP]. Note: see Carnegie’s Nov. 2 “invitation.”

November 3 Sunday – Linnie M. Bourne wrote from Washington D.C. to relate a “slip of the tongue” she’d made as a girl going with her grandfather to see Twain and Cable read in Washngton. When asked where they were going in such a hurry, she replied, “We’re going to hear Cain and Able read” [MTP].

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 3 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam sent an order form to Harper & Brothers for their story, “Beasley’s Xmas Party” to be send to various of his friends (blank lines left for Sam to write in names) [MTP: Harper’s Weekly Magazine, 18 Dec. 1909]. Note: “Beasley’s Christmas Party,” by Booth Tarkington (1909); see Gribben 686.

Paine writes of the day’s activities:

November 3. He said he could not sleep last night, for thinking what a fool he had been in his variousinvestments,

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 69th Birthday.

C. Brereton Sharpe wrote from International Plasmon Co., London to Sam, asking him to act as their proxy for the planned American Plasmon Co. shareholders meeting of Dec. 22 [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s diary: “Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens was talking of Moncure D. Conway. He is reading Conway’s autobiography just published, and it made him hark back to the days in London 24 years ago” [Gribben 157: 1903-1906 Journal, TS 28, MTP].

November 30 Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – Sam’s 70th Birthday.

Several newspapers across the country reported Sam’s “Thanksgiving sentiment,” including this quote taken from the Nov. 28 issue of the Grand Forks Daily Herald (N. Dakota), p.1:

“Every year every person in America concentrates all his thoughts on one thing—cataloguing his reasons for being thankful to the Deity for the blessings conferred on him and on the humanrace during the expiring twelve months.

November 30 Friday  – Sam’s 71 Birthday.

Gertrude Natkin sent a telegram to Sam. “Congratulations & best wishes with love and blots” (kisses) [MTAq 30]. Note: in her diary, Gertrude wrote: “I sent this telegram early in the morning. In the evening I sent Mr. Clemens my birthday gift which was a leather case. Soon after this Mr. Clemens went to Washington on business, that is to try to hve a copyright bill passed to have the rights of the published preserved fifty years after he is dead” [ibid.].

November 30 Saturday – Sam’s 72nd Birthday. The New York Times, Dec. 1, p. 1, “Mark Twain 72” reported “Hundreds of congratulatory letters and telegrams were received during the day from points all over the world. Many friends called a the house to congratulate him.”

In N.Y.C. Sam inscribed an aphorism in a copy of Eve’s Diary to an unidentified person: “With the love of the Author. November 30, 1907. Clothes make the man, but they do not improve the Woman, Truly yours, Mark Twain.” [MTP].

November 30 Monday  – Sam’s 73rd Birthday. The New York Times, Dec. 1, p.1 “Mark Twain is 73.” announced that Sam passed his birthday “quietly at his home…As was his custom, Mr. Clemens took his morning ride, passing the remainder of the day with his household.”

In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean   in Berlin, Germany.

November 30 Tuesday — Sam’s 74th and last Birthday. Paine writes of the day and his gift:

On the morning of his seventy-fourth birthday he was looking wonderfully well after a night of sound sleep, his face full of color and freshness, his eyes bright and keen and full of good-humor. I presented him with a pair of cuff-buttons silver-enameled with the Bermuda lily, and I thought he seemed pleased with them.

November 4 Friday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.

November 4 Sunday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Ponkapog, Mass. to Lyon & Sam that he had no plans except Sam’s for Friday night, and intended to leave Boston by morning train Nov. 9 [MTP].

November 4 Monday – Thomas B. Doolittle wrote from Minneapolis, Minn. to Sam. “I wish that you would quit looking like me. It annoys me very much and besides, it appears by the enclosed anonymous verse that I am handsomer. /  Yours truly” [MTP]. Note: clipping enclosed with Doolittle’s picture, “Inventor of Telephone Exchange Apparatus and Telephone Wire.” Also the picture of Twain on the Sunday Magazine, Record-Herald, Chicago.