Another Lawsuit – Anti -Imperialist, Anti-Doughnut – Sitting in Darkness “Women Should Vote”– Clara’s Washington Debut – Speeching & Feeding Demonizing Missionaries – Albany for Osteopaths – Witness for Kipling
“The Lair” Repose at Saranac Lake – Old Debts Never Die – Pallbearer for J.D.F. Slee Kanawha Cruise to St. Johns – Lyncherdom & Double-Barrelled – America’s Cup Acorns & Fusionists – Yale Gives Litt. D. – Suing Newbegin Co.
1901 – Sam recorded he was paid $24,136.15 this year by the American Publishing Co. and noted “Newb. O.S.” by the entry, likely referring to the R.G. Newbegin Co. He estimated the Co. cleared $16,000 [NB 46 TS 17].
At an unknown place Sam wrote to William P. Harrison in N.Y.C.: “All right, it’s a Contract” [MTP]. Note: Harrison or the “contract” have not been identified.
Sam also wrote on a Sunday to Brander Matthews.
You tempt me powerfully. But I must deny myself the good time you offer me, for I have ended my holiday at last & put on my overalls & devoted myself to a long & steady siege of work. My work-day stretches from 11.30 a.m. till 7 p.m. …
Conway is delightful—that I know. I have never climbed a mountain, but if I were going to try it I would rather go up on his back than on Howells’s, nine to one, although I have known Howells for 30 years. On level ground I consider Howells as good company as anybody; but above the snow-line give me Conway![MTP]. Note: likely Moncure D. Conway.
Sam also wrote a postcard to Florence H. Winterburn on a Thursday:
“In my case it was not a story, but a sketch; & not a ‘Philanthropist’ but a ‘Reformer.’ I published it in the ‘Cosmopolitan’ in ’93 or ’94. I have not written anything of the sort of ‘Harper’s’” [MTP]. Note: Sam’s piece, “Traveling with a Reformer” first appeared in Cosmopolitan for Dec. 1893.
Sam also wrote to Bertrand Shadwell. “I thank you for the poem” [MTP].
Sam also wrote three letters to unidentified persons. The first was a letter laid in a pamphlet by the Anti-Imperialist League, containing Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” reprinted by permission from the North American Review, Feb. 1901. The first letter:
“The proof slips are very interesting. Once more poor Mr. Ament gives himself away. Without intending it he has at last confessed that he was the utterer of the ‘Christmas Eve.’ I wish this interview had arrived before the N.A. Review went to press” [MTP: Am. Art Assoc Galleries Catalogs, 5 Dec. 1934, Item 74].
Note: William Scott Ament (1851-1909), missionary to China, known as the “Father of Christian endeavor in China,” became famous after his reported heroism during the Boxer Rebellion and infamous (to a degree) after attacks by Mark Twain. See Zwick’s article in MTJ (Spring 1989) p. 34-9 concerning the textual variants and the added couplet on the Anti-Imperialist League’s printed card of “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.”
The second letter, laid in a copy of HF “offering to ‘come down & get up some other arrangement,’ rather than having to come before a notary” [Am. Book Auction catalogs, 23 May 1958, Item 263]
The third letter, a one-pager: “I remember Rameses II & Moses very well, for I knew them personally when I was doing time on my fourth incarnation …” [Sotheby & Co., London catalogs, 28 July 1930, Item 137].
Possibly this year Sam also wrote and declined an invitation by form letter to A.W. Holmes of Salem, Mass. [MTP].
Andrew Chatto wrote to Sam; only the envelope survives; it was not posted, but Sam wrote on it:
“Chatto’s idea of the Uniform Edition for England” [MTP].
G.W. Griffith of Malden, Mass. Sent three quatrains to Sam headed by “They That Sit In Darkness / (No. Am. Review)” [MTP].
J.T. Griswold sent an honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa Society for Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and included a flyer on the history of the Society [MTP].
Signed only “Old Soldier,” this sent to Sam sometime in 1901:
Just see how you’ve gotten the cowardly thieves to squealing. For decency’s sake DON’T let up on ‘em. Keep everlastingly at it. Give ‘em another broadside next month. They will then try to buy you off—if they haven’t already tried. And it was a pitiful sight during the “Sitten Craze” to see so many grey-haired went bribed to recant their logical argument for bi-metalism…But don’t you be alarmed nor bullied by the more than sneak thieves [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the back of the letter: “Good. (Old Soldier)”.
Sam also received an anonymous note from this critic sometime in 1901: “I have heard said many times of late ‘Mark Twain is losing his power’; and you clearly evidence the fact when for material you turn the Holy Scripture into ridicule. / A Once / Great admirer” [MTP].
Annie R. Whitmore, a pupil in Durham High School, N.C. wrote asking for Sam’s autographed photo and where she might find a sketch of his life [MTP].
Budd writes that Sam’s article “As Regards Patriotism” first published in Europe and Elsewhere (1923) was “probably written in 1901” [Collected 2: 1006].
Sam also wrote “Corn-Pone Opinions,” sometime during 1901, and first published in Europe and Elsewhere (1923), edited by Paine. See Jan. 31 notebook entry.
Paine puts 1901 to Sam’s essay, “Skeleton Plan of a Proposed Casting Vote Party,” which offered a scheme “To compel the two Great Parties to nominate their best man always.” The piece was collected in Europe and Elsewhere (1923), edited by Paine, and also in The Complete Essays of Mark Twain (1963), edited by Neider.
After Dinner Speeches at the Lotos Club, John Elderkin, Chester Sanders Lord, and Horatio N. Fraser, eds: Tenney: “Contains the text of MT’s speech at the dinner in his honor, November 10, 1900 (pp. 374-79); without editorial comment, but with group photograph facing p. 374” [34].
Famous Authors (Men) by E.F. Harkins: Tenney: “pp. 43-57 / An admiring but superficial biography for the general reader” [34].
American Literature by Alphonso G. Newcomer. Tenney: “Praises MT as a storyteller, satirist, moralist, and for his portrayal of character. (A textbook)” [35].
A Literary History of America, by Barrett Wendell, NY, and T. Fisher Unwin, London. Tenney: “Comparatively little on MT, but only because the book emphasizes authors no longer living. Compares MT to Franklin and Irving, despite lesser grace, for his sober confusion of fact and nonsense (pp. 101, 173, 508), and says that his power ‘would have been exceptional anywhere’ (p.513). HF, with its dialect, is a ‘masterpiece, that amazing Odyssey of the Mississippi,’ the product of ‘an artistic conscience as strenuous as Irving’s, or Poe’s, or Hawthorne’s’ (p.477); it is ‘a book which in certain moods one is disposed for all its eccentricity to call the most admirable work of literary art as yet produced on this continent’ (p.503)” [35-6].