February 16 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Dine—7.30 Leigh Hunt, Holland House” [NB 44 TS 6]. Note: Leigh S.J. Hunt. See Jan. 1.
At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam replied to Paschal H. Coggins (Sidney Marlow), who wrote on Feb. 13.
But I thank you for writing me the letter nevertheless, for approval of one’s acts never comes amiss. You bring back to me a vision of those old days most pleasantly. I can see it all, I recognize the men as if they stood before me in the flesh. They were fine, and good, and straight; I reverence their memory, and I wish we had a whole nation like them [MTP]. Note: Coggins’ father worked at the Sacramento Union when Coggins was a boy.
Sam also wrote an aphorism to Frederick B. Merkle: “Always do right. This will gratify some people, & astonish the rest. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / New York, Feb. 16, 1901” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Miss Mary Elizabeth Phillips (1857 -1945), American author in N.Y.C., saying her “book is a favourite with this family, and therefore it was at once seized and carried off when it came,” so he hadn’t yet discovered the defects she wrote of, but he thanked her for sending it [MTP]. Note: Gribben lists only a 1903 book by Phillips, Laurel Leaves for Little Folk [544]. Phillips’ books prior to 1901 include Reminiscences of William Wetmore Story, the American Sculptor and Author, etc. (1897); Handbook of German Literature (1895); and possibly Tommy Tregennis (no date) [WorldCat].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person. “I got great contentment out of your destruction of that prison, and I hope you will do some more slaying of that kind when opportunity offers” [MTP: Bodley Book Shop catalogs, No. 107, Item 581].
Outlook ran an anonymous article using Twain’s title, “To a Person Sitting in Darkness,” p.386-7. Tenney: “MT’s article in the North American Review ‘will have no effect on the opinion of the fairly informed, unprejudiced, and independently thoughtful student of current affairs….Most Americans will think that American soldiers and Christian missionaries are as much entitled as Satan not to be condemned without a hearing’”[34].
Review of Reviews (London), p. 254-6 ran a summary of Mark Twain’s, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” from the N.A. Review of Feb. Tenney: “A few words of praise are given, but no significant review” [34].