April 17 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Letter from Lyman Gage, Secretary of the Treasury. Answered it one or 2 days later & asked for a note to Custom House” [NB 43 TS 8]. Note: see other entries for Lyman J. Gage, who was evidently the Treasurer of the Plasmon Syndicate. See Apr. 19 NB entry.

At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam replied to William James (sadly, James’ letter is not extant).

Dear Professor James: / Mrs. Clemens & I have just returned from a few days’ visit to Stanley at his country place, & find your letter awaiting attention.

I cannot tell you a tithe of the pleasure your hearty words & splendid commendations have given me, & I am very glad you did not put aside the impulse which prompted you to write them, but gave it hospitality. I am very glad indeed.

And I am also glad that you are moved to try Kellgren. That he can mend your disorder I do believe.

(James suffered from debilitating heart disease.) Sam offered three examples of cases of heart problems that Henrick Kellgren had helped, and then told of Henry M. Stanley’s recovery after being “on his deathbed with gastralgia in mid-February.”

I helped to put Lady Stanley on the track of Kellgren. He had Stanley back in the House of Commons in about a week. Yesterday Stanley said “Kellgren has been a godsend to me.” It is my conviction that Kellgren can modify any ailment, & can cure any that is curable. In typhoid, scarlet fever, influenza, & all such things, he is a master-hand. With cordial regards… [MTP]. Note: from these remarks Sam revealed they had been at Stanley’s country place the day before, the last of “a few days’ visit.”

Sam also replied to Basil (Canon) Wilberforce’s Apr. 16 invitation to give a short talk on Joan of Arc.

I shall be very glad indeed to attempt it if after reflection I succeed in persuading myself that it will be safe for me to venture to talk in place of reading from MS. I have many doubts. The short paper I wrote for Mr. Murray’s book contains what I should wish to say—a grouping, under two or three heads, of the chief marvels of Joan’s character as revealed by the prominent incidents of her career. It is not an effort to account for Joan, but rather an argument or confession that she cannot be accounted for.

Sam felt that if he could intersperse a reading of the paper mentioned with talk “enough to relieve the formality,” he “might get through without shipwreck.” He offered to “come down & talk” when Wilberforce was “back to town” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Dorothy T. Stanley, thanking her for the Clemens family’s recent stay.

I am in a most grateful mood, for that was just a perfect visit for us Clemenses & we cannot call to mind the match to it for luxuriously complete & satisfying enjoyment. It was better than being at home; for it was being at home, with the cares & responsibilities extinguished. So to speak, it was heaven, with old Gillette missing.

I send my best love to you, & to my dear dinner-partner, & to Stanley; & I hope you may all continue happy up to your deserts. In that case you will need no addition that this life can furnish, I am sure of it. / Sincerely Yours… [MTP]. Note: the visit at the Stanley estate was from Apr. 13 to 16. Sam’s “dinner-partner” is not identified.