February 20 Wednesday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to William Carey of Century Magazine. Sam wrote to him at the University Club: “Carey says he knows I would rather write than be President. This has all the ear-marks of one of Carey’s ordinary every-day lies” [MTP]. Note: See June 14, 1897 entry; Carey died later in 1901 in his forties.
Sam also wrote to Henry R. Chamberlain, head of Laffan’s news service in China.
Laffan says that the cablegram published in the Sun December 24, in which Rev. Mr. Ament seemed to be frankly confessing crimes and infamies of an amazing sort, could not have gotten upon the wires without your sanction, nor without your knowledge that the thing was straight and the proofs at hand when needed.
I copied that dispatch in an article in the North American Review of the present month, wherein I was slandering the progress of the white man’s civilization in China—at least trying to slander it; I suppose it cant really be done. I commented upon Mr. Ament’s Confession, and promised him a monument. If I was expecting to call out the gratitude of the American Board, that expectation has not materialized. The board has uttered its disapproval, through its first secretary , Rev. Justin [sic Judson] Smith, D.D., in a letter mailed to me through the Associated Press. Dr. Smith studiously avoids the issue—which is, did Doctor Ament say the attributed words and to the attributed things, or didn’t he? He thinks I have committed an enormity in condemning a man upon a single newspaper dispatch. He wanted a thousand, perhaps. I waited 39 days for the Board to produce from Mr. Ament a repudiation of the facts of the dispatch, before I said anything….The Board would not have waited three days, I judged, if it could have furnished from Ament’s mouth a denial.
I shall probably not take up the matter again, if I am left unmolested. But if molested I should like to be in shape to say with positiveness one thing or the other—that Ament did and said those things, or didn’t. If he shall prove innocent I wish to frankly say so; and if guilty as frankly say that.
Sam asked for a letter from Chamberlain with “ammunition of either kind,” and testimony, either way, from Sir Robert Hart, Dr. Morrison, Mr. Bonsell, Mr. Conger “and other men of position and credit” who were familiar with the case [MTP].
Sam also wrote to nephew Samuel E. Moffett, on J.L. Cochran’s inquiry of Feb. 20 (below) as to whether Sam was originally from Kentucky: “Please tell him—oh, what you please. SLC” [MTP].
J.L. Cochran wrote from Columbia, Penn. to Sam asking if he was originally from Kentucky, as he’d seen a tombstone at Mayfield Kentucky with the name Jane Cochran Clemens, and in his youth had heard his grandfather speak of Mark Twain [MTP].
William Marshall Warren wrote compliments of Twain’s “Sitting in Darkness” article. A clipping enclosed has been lost [MTP].
Brander Matthews inscribed a copy of his new book, The Historical Novel and Other Essays (1901; Scribner’s): “To Mark Twain in testimony of my regard for the man and of my respect for the literary artist / witness my hand: Brander Matthews, Feb. 20th, 1901.” On the front free endpaper Matthews wrote, “By a recent decision of the Supreme Court the man to whom a book is dedicated is personally responsible for all the opinions in it. B.NM. Feb. 20th. 1901” [Sotheby’s June 19, 2003 Lot 222, Item 165512]. Note: see Sam’s thanks to Matthews in Feb. 21 entry.