June 10 Thursday — Clemens and Paine traveled 20 miles to Catonsville, Maryland and St. Timothy’s School for Frances Nunnally’s graduation. Clemens’ commencement speech was his last public speaking performance. The speech as reported by Baltimore News, “Advice to Girls,” in Fatout:
I don’t know what to tell you girls to do. Mr. Martin has told you everything you ought to do, and now I must give you some don’ts, There is nothing for me to do but to tell you young ladies what not to do. There are three things that you should never do on any occasion.
First, girls, don’t smoke—that is, don’t smoke to excess. I am seventy- three and one half years old, and have been smoking seventy-three of them. But I never smoke to excess— that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.
Second, don’t drink—that is, don’t drink to excess,
Third, don’t marry—I mean, to excess.
Now, if you young ladies will refrain from all these things you will have all the virtues that anyone will honor and respect.
Another thing I want to say, and that is that honesty is the best policy. That is an old proverb; but you don’t ever want to forget it in your journey through life.
I remember when I had just written Innocents Abroad when I and my partner wanted to start a newspaper syndicate. We needed three dollars and did not know where to get it. While we were in a quandary I espied a valuable dog on the street. I picked up the canine and sold him to a man for three dollars. Afterward the owner of the dog came along and I got three dollars from him for telling him where the dog was. So I went back and gave the three dollars to the man whom I sold it to, and have lived honestly ever since [Fatout, MT Speaking 645-6).
Note: for some reason Fatout names the wrong school—Misses Tewksbury’s school where Margaret Blackmer was enrolled, Also, on Sept. 28, 2009, a photograph album went on sale on eBay with 165 snapshots, many of Clemens, Nunnally and others at the ceremony which was held the next day, June 10 (see insert photo).
Insert: Clemens, Albert Bigelow Paine, and Frances Nunnally at St. Timothy’s
Dr. Edward Everett Hale died in Boston at the age of 87. He is best remembered for his 1863 short story, “The Man Without a Country.” Hale was third on Mark Twain’s 1905 list of ten nominees to join the American Academy of Arts and Letters [Gribben 285; NY Times, June 11, 1909, p. 9].
George E. Day for YMCA, Somerville, (Mass.) wrote to ask Sam for a lecture or reading [MTP]. Note. “Ans’d June 12, ‘09”
T. Fisher Unwin wrote from London to Sam, “I send you herewith a copy of “The Pools of Silence” by Mr. H. de Vere Stacpoole. This book deals with the present situation in the Congo, and as I think, in a sincere and Striking way. The public at large hardly realises, perhaps, that the position of the affairs in the Congo remains practically unchanged” [MTP]. Note: not in Gribben.
The New York Times, p, 6 ran a squib from the Brooklyn Eagle:
Mark Twain's Alibi.
From the Brooklyn Eagle.
Mark Twain would do, or commit, or suggest, or abet, or connive at no unnecessary wrong—in the absence of Col. George Harvey, who is today delivering an address at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence on "The Power of Tolerance."
The physical absence of Col. Harvey tn Kansas establishes a moral alibi for Mark Twain whether in Manhattan or Connecticut or elsewhere.