May 2 Sunday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).
Dear Mrs. Rogers: / I shall arrive at noon next Friday, & go at once down town on business, & back to No. 3 for dinner, provided there will be a bed for me & no extra charge. I return home next day. I’m due at the Jerome banquet Friday evening at 10.
If there’s no vacant bed, or if you are to be away Fairhavenward, will you please telephone me here when you receive this?
My telephone address is
774 Danbury
(I’ll get that No. in the morning I’m in bed now.)
Yours ever / SL Clemens
Please don’t tell Mr. Rogers. He would raise the limit [MTHHR 661-2]. Notes: from source point out that the new Rogers address was 3 East 78th Street, NYC. Also, that Sam was on a committee to arrange a testimonial dinner for District Attorney William Travers Jerome at Delmonico’s on May 7. He wrote the note and the next morning opened it, provided his correct phone no., and lined out the above strikeout line.
Hill puts this as the day Clemens began the 429 pages of what has been called the “Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript.” He would work on it intermittently until Oct. 29 [230]. Note: Hill calls this “‘a geyser of bias, vindictiveness, and innuendo” [231]. Note: in the MS that Hill cites, we find beginning a multi-page letter to William Dean Howells, in which Sam rambles. Here is the first portion (misspellings of names emended):
Dear Howells: Those resentful & rather disrespectful references are to Clara Clemens. They are earned; for it was she that found The Ashcrofts out. You are acquainted with them, you like drama & meladrama in real life: we’ve been having it—strenuously—tight under our roof for three years & never suspected it till now. Other people have suspected it almost from the beginning,—Harvey, Duneka, Major Leigh and David Munro for a year past. & Albert Bigelow Paine for two years—but Clara & I remained peacefully asleep. Lounsbury, that shrewd Yankee neighbor of ours, classified Miss Lyon & Ashcroft as “crooked” before he had known them a month. Our house-servants had arrived at a similar verdict more than a year ago, while we were still living in New York, Broughton & John Hays Hammond set Ashcroft down for a rascal & an Ananias early as two years ago. H.H. Rogers read “fraud” all over Ashcroft the first time he saw him. So did Edward Loomis.
And yet—how dull I have always been in reading characters! —I had the most absolute & uncompromising faith in the honesty, fidelity & truthfulness of that pain of rotten eggs all the while. Yes, & so had Clara.) Clara & Miss Lyon were like lovers. They called each other by pet names. Clara called Miss Lyon “Nana”; Clara’s pet name was “Santa Clara.” Uttered in their presence now, these names would act upon them as emetics. :
Dear me, what a revolutionary work a couple of months can do! It is about that long ago that Clara’s suspicions were aroused. By Dr. Quintard,. He thought Miss Lyon & Ashcroft ought to be asked to furnish an account of their stewardship. Ashcroft told me he heard Quintard tell Miss Lyon he believed she was dishonest. Ashcroft was indignant, & so was I.
But Clara was not in a good-natured mood, & she wanted to carry out Quintard’s suggestion. Her mood resulted from two or three little things which had been happening. Well, little things can do large work sometimes; a lucifer match can start a small fire that will burn down a metropolis, One day Clara rang up a servant & gave n order; Miss Lyon heard of it & countermanded the order & added that all orders must pass thro’ her. Another day Miss Lyon told me Katy had been angering the servants by refusing to eat at their table—“wouldn’t eat with Italians.” It was strange conduct for Katy, who had served us 28 years & had not been accused of putting on airs before. Miss Lyon told me she got it from Teresa & Giusappe. (Both denied it promptly.) I gave Katy a scolding. She seemed most thoroughly & comprehensively amazed; & said she had never said nor even thought of saying the thing which had been charged upon her. Clara was in a fury, & she stood by Katy, & said that Katy’s denial of the charge was sufficient, & made the charge of a falsehood. Then Miss Lyon assured me, in (in her oily way,) that it was not she that brought the charge to me! I wish to be damned if I didn’t believe her!
Howells, this is very remarkable little tale that I am unfolding in this outwar to you is that your trained & alert literary instincts & appreciations are the best & most inspiring I know of to display it before: an audience that will beguile me into dwelling leisurely & lovingly upon it, & enjoying the taste of it in my mouth. It is a darling tale, & I can’t consent to spoil it by writing it to Ahcroft. It would degrade my dignity beyond reelevation to lower it to the lever of that cad. I suppose you see he is a cad? He is 34 years old & a cipher in the world; I am nearly 74 & a figure in the world, yet he blandly puts himself on an equality with me & insults me as freely & as frankly as if I were his fellow-bastard & born in the same sewer. And do you know—he stepped in, yesterday afternoon on the heels of his letter, of smily & congenial as if nothing had happened. Paine was there billiard room), & I was glad. It saved me from calling Ashcroft a son of a bitch—language which I never allow myself to use in society I mean to keep my temper, for I have a purpose. If I keep it & leave him unanswered, he will mow me under with similar letters, & I will add them to my tale, & you shall have them all. You would never guess how rich they will be. But I know about this; for (he fell upon John Hay Hammond two or three years ago, which his pen, & rained filthy & fury and unimaginable silliness upon him during two or three weeks—daily? No—almost hourly. A man like Hammond—lately an aspirant to the Vice Presidency of the United States—couldn’t afford to reply to a louse like Ashcroft, of course, & so he remained silent. Ashcroft thought he was afraid) Man, let me tell you, Ashcroft would consider himself quite competent to carry on literary war with me. how that is true; I am speaking seriously. He is clever—& in many ways, too—but not with his pen. He does not suspect this. Do you know—he even composes poetry; & gets it printed, & gives it to the poor. I have read it, & not all of it is bad; some of it is tolerably good [Note: following parts II — XXI comprise the rest of the Ashcroft-Lyon MS, too long for inclusion here; segments of it are quoted in these pages for named or appropriate dates].