October 28 Friday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.
It is good & relieving news that you send me about Joe. Now, then, let him make a sacrifice for his mother’s sake & call Jean’s hand: * [at bottom margin: * Ecclesiastical poker term] Jean has given up horse-back riding, for my sake. I shall try to make it up to her some way.
October 28 Saturday – At Redman Farm, the summer home of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass. Sam wrote to Alfred T. Waite.
October 28 Sunday – Clemens was still in Tuxedo Park, spending time with Harry and Mary Rogers.
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
October 28 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
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 28 Thursday — In the evening a dance was held at the “old Selleck house through the courtesy of Mr. Bergquist, the present occupant... at which the guests wore sheets, pillow cases & masks, quite a number were present, and all seemed to have a pleasant time” [MTLA minutes copied at the Library by Tenney Nov. 15, 1981]. Note: it is not known if Sam attended, though it is doubtful, as he was under a sort of “house arrest” by doctor’s orders.
October 28-31 – Sometime between these dates George C. Riggs and Kate Douglas Riggs sent Sam and Clara Clemens an invitation to meet Mr. & Mrs. Forbes Robertson, Sunday, Nov. 4 at 9:15 p.m. [MTP]. Note: possibly Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937), English actor, considered the finest Hamlet of the Nineteenth Century. Robertson got his start by playing second fiddle to the great Sir Henry Irving.
October 29 Saturday – Sam inscribed each of the 23 volumes of the new Hillcrest Edition of his works, using a different aphorism (most from “Pudd’nhead Wilsons New Caledar” in FE) just out by Harper & Brothers, to William R. Coe, H.H. Rogers’ son-in-law. Volume one is not extant and only five is dated.
To Will R. Coe with the kindest regards of The Author. October 29, 1904.”
October 29 Sunday – Sam likely returned to the Pearmain’s Back Bay Boston house either this day or the next. He would write Duneka from there on Oct. 31.
October 29 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
October 29 Tuesday – John C. Gardner wrote from Toronto. Gardner denied being a “crank” yet sent 10 pages typed double-spaced relating his life long exposure to Twain’s books and the fall from his estimation caused by the frustration of reading Sam’s Autobiography in serial form in a magazine. While trying to be humorous, Gardner became tedious (this is a rare editorial comment dedicated to Tom Tenney) [MTP].
October 29 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 24, 26, 27, 28 to Frances Nunnally.
October 29 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a longer letter to Beatrice M. Benjamin.
October 3 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam finished his Oct. 3 to daughter Clara, in care of John Walker, 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. 6, a.m., Wednesday.
Take my bedroom—you will never hear a hoof-click there. And keep it, permanently, if your own room is big enough for a billiard room. I hope it is, & I feel sure it is. I think I know it is.
I must telegraph you this to-day, dear [MTP].
Sam also replied to the Sept. 27 from Brander Matthews.
October 3 Thursday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam finished his Oct. 2 to Dorothy Quick.
October 3 Saturday – At “Stormfield,” Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Miss Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), author of Anne of Green Gables (1908):
Dear Miss Montgomery:
Mr. Clemens directs me to thank you for your charming book & says I may quote to you from his letter to Francis Wilson about it:
In “Anne of Green Gables” you will find the dearest & most moving & delightful child since the immortal Alice.
October 30 Tuesday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Ralph W. Ashcroft, in care of the advertising agent for Canadian Pacific railway, Montreal: “Mr. Clemens is indefinitely bedridden with bronchitis & has been persuaded to give up the trip to Egypt entirely” [MTP].
Note: see Nov. 7 to Mary Rogers.
October 30 Wednesday – Roi Cooper Megrue for Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam: “Can we arrange for a dramatization of your story [‘]Our Italian Guide[‘] with Mr Timmory in Paris” [MTP].
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 30 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Schuyler Allen in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Dear Helen: / I hope you & your mother reached your island safe & well. It was a short visit you gave me, but it was delightful, & it must be repeated some day & lengthened, if you’ll be so good.
October 31 Monday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Charles Erskine Scott Wood. Dear Wood: / I have read “A Masque of Love” with strong pleasure. It is a beautiful poem & wise & deep. What Alp shall you subdue next? You were an able instructor of West Point lads in the science of war; then you took up the law & distinguished yourself in that profession; & now you have proven that you are a poet. Well, go on, old time friend; the more triumphs you achieve the better will be pleased [MTP].
October 31 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam was down with a bad cold.
October 31 Thursday – Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Miss Lyon about dramatizing progress [MTP].