May 13 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote on Blanche E. Weekes’ May 7 and sent it to Elisabeth Marbury. “Above letter is referred to Miss Marbury by / SL. Clemens / who is weary of corresponding with alleged dramatists. / May 13/02. / I do not remember having heard of Miss Weekes before” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mr. Wolfe (not further identified): “After endorsing your check over to the Harpers I found I did not need to buy a book—I found one on hand, & am forwarding it” [MTP].
May 14 Wednesday – Livy’s diary: “Mrs Ruth McEmory [sic McEnery] Stuart & Mrs Gen. Custer gave us a reception in New York” [MTP: DV161]. Note: a check of NY papers for this event came up empty.
May 15 Thursday – Sam’s notebook entry lists ideas for the “50 years after” tale, never finished [NB 45 TS 13].
Hill claims the MS “is one of the very few that, in his entire life, Mark Twain actually may have destroyed” [43].
Livy’s diary: “Mark McGinnis & Mr Borce, took tea with us” [MTP: DV161].
May 16 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied to his old Nevada friend, William R. Gillis, whose incoming letter is not extant:
Dear old Unreconstructible!
May 17 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, enclosing a letter from Thomas B. Reed to the Rev. M.M.J. Cooper, Rector of St. Christopher’s, Rum Cay, Bahamas. The letter announced a donation of a church organ by Reed.
May 18 Sunday – Livy’s diary: “Annie Trumbull, Miss Dike & John Howells here for tea” [MTP: DV161].
May 19 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, reacting to the lack of interest in the advertisements for the sale of their Hartford house. Whitmore was surprised there had been no letters from out of town. To Sam, the plan used to seem plausible to hook “some rich Chicagoan” but now that the scheme wasn’t successful he wasn’t surprised.
The thing that does is that there is but one Hartford bid. I had thought of Mrs. George Perkins, & of James Goodwin’s son; as possible bidders.
Sam’s article, “A Defence of General Funston,” ran in the May 1902 issue of the North American Review.
May 2 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, who evidently had asked what road to take to get to Riverdale. Sam replied: “Land!—I don’t know any road except the railroad, & it doesn’t turn off at all. I think you stick to Broadway all the way, but I do not know” [MTP]. Note: Bigelow was likely coming to Sam’s dinner party this evening, and was a fan of the bicycle. “Dinner party at home” [NB 45 TS 11].
May 20 Tuesday – Livy’s diary: “Mrs William E. Dodge here for tea” [MTP: DV161].
Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam, advising that she had used $5,000 on the Steel investment which Rogers had made “some time since,” to offset $5,000 owed Rogers [MTP].
May 21 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore (only the envelope survives) [MTP].
Sam inscribed a copy of A Double-Barrelled Detective Story with his signature and the date on a blank preliminary leaf [PBA Galleries auction 24 May 2007 Lot 248].
Sam’s notebook entry lists ideas for the “50 years after” tale, never finshed [NB 45 TS 13].
May 22 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Briercliff? / Join Mr. Wright here at 10.14 a.m. / Returning leave Scarboro at 3—something” [NB 45 TS 13]. Note: Howard E. Wright of the Am. Plasmon Co. The entry suggests the two men went to Scarborough, N.Y.on Plasmon Co. business. Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. is nearby.
May 23 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to James R. Clemens.
Insert: Planters House Hotel, St. Louis
I am thanking the both of you (& Muriel) very much, & am accepting for June 5th, 6 p.m., & next day & maybe day after. With many thanks.
May 24 Saturday – Livy’s diary: “Mr & Mrs Frederick Goddard here for luncheon” [MTP: DV161].
Mary A. Geisse wrote from Phila. to Sam, thanking him for “his prompt reply, also for your opinion of my work” (poems) [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “I tried to make this fool understand (without saying the naked brutal words) that she has neither talent nor genius with this damned result.”
May 25 Sunday – Sam read the last half of George Iles’ 1900 book, Flame, Electricity and the Camera [May 26 to Iles].
Nathaniel Pasternak wrote from N.Y.C. to Sam, that he would “be on hand any time you call me up. The boys were disappointed—badly—on receipt of that previous letter and are now reassured. Membership has now swelled to about fifty—you can guess the reason—and no more are admitted for the present. We hope your trip turns out to be a very successful and agreeable one” [MTP].
May 26 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to George Iles. “Yesterday I read the last half of your book on flame, electricity & the camera again. And I thank you again. It is an enchanting book, & the style & phrasing are worthy of the great subjects. I am leaving for the West, to return the middle of June; but I am leaving the ancient hymn-books behind, in a safe place” [MTP].
May 27 Tuesday – Sam left N.Y.C. on the N.Y. Central RR at 9:20 p.m. headed for St. Louis [May 23 to James R. Clemens]. Note: according to his June 10 to James, it was a 30 hour trip from N.Y.C. to St. Louis, putting him in St. Louis at about 7:30 the morning of May 29. His NB entry gives 9.45 p.m. as departure time, with fare of $24.25 and a room $22; paid $46.25 [NB 45 TS 14].
Livy’s diary: “Sue [Crane] came in the evening: Mr Clemens went to Columbia, Missouri to receive a degree from the University of Missouri” [MTP: DV161].
May 28 Wednesday – Sam was on the train en route to St. Louis, sleeping well the second night [May 23 to James R. Clemens].
John B. Briggs wrote from New London, Mo. to Sam. “Dear ‘Mark’:– / I see by the St. Louis Republican where you are to be in Hannibal, Mo., in the course of a few days, and if I am well enough would like to see you…and talk over old boyhood days” [MTP].
May 29 Thursday – Sam arrived in St. Louis around 7:30 a.m. He had planned to meet James Ross Clemens at the Planters House, but James and his cousin Lamotte Cates met him at the station and took him to Planters. (Note: Paine writes Horace Bixby also met him at the station MTB p. 1167).
May 3 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Lewis P. Ward, “(Known in the last century as ‘Little Ward’)” at The Olympic Club, S.F. Only the envelope survives [MTP]. Note: Ward died in 1903.
Sam’s notebook contains Sam’s reminiscence of another dinner party:
Dined at Sir Henry M. Stanley in (’99?) after the South African war broke out. At end of table, Lady Stanley’s sister at my left, (The Castle School) Lord Kirchener next to her, Chamberlain next to me.
May 30 Friday – It was a full first day In Hannibal, Mo. Sam gave an autograph to Minnie Dawson. Sometime during his stay in Hannibal (May 30 to June 9) he also gave an autograph on St. Louis Country Club letterhead in Clayton, Mo. to Sophie Sloan. Sam stayed up till after midnite into May 31, when he wrote Livy about the day .
May 31 Saturday – In the wee hours of May 31 in Hannibal, Mo. Sam wrote of the trip and the previous full day to Livy. See May 29 entry.
Later in the day Sam attended a reception for the 1901 Hannibal High School graduating class in the Windsor Hotel and told of his boyhood attempt to get measles. They gave Sam a spoon engraved with an image of his old home on Hill Street [Sorrentino 21]. Note: see MTCI p.447.
Sam’s notebook: “7.30 p.m., hotel. Meet class of 1900, High School. / 8.30 Reception” [NB 45 TS 15].
May 4 Sunday – Livy’s diary: “Mr & Mrs Wm E. Dodge came for tea” [MTP: DV161].
May 5 Monday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam that he had sent James F. Strang a reply as Sam requested (see Mar. 31 from Strang), and would “tackle the other to-morrow” [MTHHR 486]. Rogers’ letter (which seems very Twain-like):
May 6 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Alice Day, dinner, to meet Lord & Lady Kelvin 8. p.m.” [NB 45 TS 12]. Note: