June 12 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Minnie Dawson of Hannibal, daughter of his old schoolteacher, J.D. Dawson.
“I thank you for the Mississippi pearl, which is beautiful & does the river great honor. Always when I have claimed that we used to get pearls out of the mussels, my family have doubted me; but by grace of your evidence my character stands better now” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to C. Edwin Hutchings.
I ought to be very grateful to you for making that verbatim report and printing it, and I am. Long-hand reports have embittered my life for 30 years, for no matter how bad a speech I may make they manage to make it twice as bad as it was when I disgorged it. And so I thank you.
With my kindest regards to Mrs. Hutchings—once of Hannibal—and to you, I am / Sincerely yours… [MTP: Cyril Clemens, Mark Twain: The Letter Writer, 1932, p.110].
Sam also wrote to Mrs. E.W. Stephens of Columbia, Mo.
I beg to thank you first, and all your household next, for the hospitable good times I had under your roof. I offer my sincerest acknowledgments and best wishes to you all; including the officer of the deck, the baby. Not all autocrats wield their authority as justly and as considerately as he does. It was a memorable time for me, those eleven days in Missouri—a dream come true, after 50 years. Billions of boys have dreamed it—all boys of all times and climes and nationalities have dreamed it, but not two dozen have seen it come to pass, perfect, and unmarred by any alloy of reproach or remorse or bitterness, I think. Even the Prodigal’s glad home-coming had a lack: it put an injustice upon his brother, and there was a private pang in that, for him.
Mrs. Clemens and I beg that when any of you come East you will be good to us and let us know, and will come under our roof and let us minister unto you in the ways of good-fellowship.
Colonel Lamb has sent me the Phi Beta Key, and it is a beauty to look at. Mr. Stephens will see by the enclosed that that Russian Prohibition was not a matter of consequence.
I shall be glad to be remembered kindly to President and Mrs. Jesse, and to the other valued friends I made in Columbia—tried to make anyway—and with best wishes for the happiness and prosperity of all the Stephens family… [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Eugene Field II.
Indeed the tablet should be moved to the right house if the right house is still standing: if not, I hope you will adopt the present house as the birthplace; for the sentiment is the main thing, after all, & it is better that that nose grow in an alien garden than that it grow not at all—as any will say who loved Eugene Field [MTP: Christies auction 11 Dec. 2001, Lot 26 Sale 8619]. Note: seller’s TS. Sam had helped to dedicate a plaque placed at the supposed birthplace of Eugene Field, beloved author of children’s stories; later it was discovered that Field was born at another house; the source gives 634 Broadway, St. Louis, Mo.
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
10 Am Plasmon Co 5000.00 Guaranty Trust Co of NY
Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote to Sam, enclosing her photo; his photo was in front of her as she wrote and thanked him for it. The little boy in her photo was her nephew. She was reading HF. Also, she’d seen from New York papers which came about the ceremony of Rochambeau’s statue in Washington. She had read in her own papers of his opinion on the recent war of South Africa (Boer) and estimated he thought as nine-tenths of France did on the subject, but didn’t he think England, though the winner, “and had had terrible loss” “had been rather generous in the conditions they agreed upon?” She wanted to know what he thought of the treaty. She also realized if she had gone to school sooner by two years in Heidelberg she might have seen him there [MTP].
George W. Reeves for Hoyt & Co. wrote twice to Sam, the first enclosing the title policy on the Tarrytown house, the second to report he had hired Henry C. Griffin, 130 Main St., Tarrytown, for Sam’s case to get the taxes lowered on the property there; the fee of $25 in case he should not succeed [MTP].