November 20 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Grape-fruit. prepare it / 19th Cent. Club / Sherry’s, 5th Ave & 44th. 8.30” [NB 43 TS 29].
At 14 W. 10th Street in New York Sam wrote to John Kendrick Bangs.
My wife has Aldrich’s speech locked in her desk, & she is out; but when she returns it will be mailed to you.
I am glad to have the other boys say things, but I’ll keep still & let on to know nothing of the pleasant conspiracy [MTP]. Note: See Nov. 13 entry.
Sam also wrote a short postcard note in German to Poultney Bigelow in care of John Bigelow, N.Y.C.
“Man sagt du bist schon zu Hause angekommen alretty. Sprecht! Wenn es Wahrheit sei, Komme ich gleich eine Visit an Dich abzustatten.” Translated: “People say that you have arrived at home already. Speak! If it is the truth, I’ll come over at once to pay you a visit” [MTP]. Note: Translation compliments of Holger Kersten
Sam also wrote to George B. Harvey.
If the rush ever does let up I am coming down to my pal’s den & finish & sign. Meantime, let us add the 100-year book [autobiography] to the arrangements again, & make it definite; for I am going to dictate that book to my daughter, with the certainty that as I go along I shall grind out chapters which will be good for magazine & book to-day, & not need wait a century.
Sam also wrote that he had explained to Van Benthuysen and McClure’s representatives that he couldn’t write for them and they were satisfied. The Century needed “one little humorous 5,000-word tale for $2,500” [MTP]. Note: William C. Van Benthuysen (1855-1903), editorial manager of the New York World (1898-1903). Harvey had a summer house in Deal, N.J.
Sam also wrote to Thomas R. Lounsbury (1838-1915), American literary historian and critic, from 1871 to 1906 a professor of English at Yale. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I am ‘full-up’ as the ’bus-conductor says—for some months” [MTP]. Note: the two men amicably differed on James Fenimore Cooper; Lounsbury’s 1882 Life of James Fenimore Cooper was favorable to the author, which Sam took to mean that Lounsbury hadn’t actually read Cooper.
Eleanor V. Hutton wrote to Sam, enclosing a copy of her letter to Mrs. Ida E. Chamberlin and Helen Keller’s appeal. She’d rec’d a letter from H.H. Rogers same date enclosing a “remarkable” letter he’d rec’d from Mrs. Chamberlin. “He says he shall do nothing until he hears from me. I enclose a copy of my reply to him.” Eleanor was involved in them campaign to support Helen Keller [MTP].
Sam dined at the Nineteenth Century Club at Sherry’s Restaurant, N.Y.C. and spoke to the subject of the evening, “The Disappearance of Literature.” Fatout introduces Sam’s remarks:
At the Nineteenth Century Club dinner the chairman, Dr. Elgin R.L. Gould, said that when he was in Germany he had had to apologize profusely for the liberties a certain American literary man had taken with the German language. The remark, which was the sort of thing Mark Twain called a “text” gave him an opportunity for rebuttal. Sam’s speech may be found in Fatout, MT Speaking p.358-9.
Note: Mentioned are Prof. Caleb Thomas Winchester (1847 -1920) Rhetoric and English Literature at Wesleyan University; William Peterfield Trent (1862-1939), founder of Sewanee Review, prof. English Literature Columbia University (1900-29); Charles William Eliot (1834-1926) Harvard President (1869-1909).
After the dinner Katy Leary took a cab home. A fare dispute ensued leading to this article in the New York Times, Nov. 22, 1900, p1.
MARK TWAIN HAS GRIEVANCE.
The Writer Makes Complaint at City Hall Against Cab Driver.
Mark Twain went to the City Hall yesterday [Nov. 21] and told a story similar to some tales in his “Innocents Abroad.” Mr. Clemens could see no joke in a New York cab driver overcharging a passenger and then becoming insolent.
“I am a patient and long-suffering citizen,” said the humorist.
Secretary Downes was at first tempted to regard the matter as a Twain joke. Mr. Clemens told in all seriousness how he took a cab after a dinner [sic; Katy was the aggrieved; see Nov. 23] at the Nineteenth Century Club to drive to his home in West Tenth Street. When the cab stopped, Mr. Clemens claimed that the cabman wanted an exorbitant fee. Payment was made under protest after Mr. Clemens demanded the number of the cab. As the nighthawk rounded into Fifth Avenue, Mr. Clemens claimed the man hurled abuse at him from his high perch. It was also found that the cabman had given the wrong number of his license. His right number, it appears, was 191. Mr. Clemens did not see Mayor Van Wyck. He stated his complaint to Mayor’s Marshall David Roche. An officer was sent out to find the offending nighthawk and a hearing will be held on the matter this morning.
A TIMES reporter called at Mr. Clemens’s residence, 14 West Tenth Street, and was informed that Mr. Clemens would see no newspaper men and would make no statement about the incident.
Mr. Clemens’s stories of his adventures with hackmen abroad occupy many pages of his works.
[Note: Sam’s notebook: “Cab 191 (told me it was 395)—claimed $1.50 to bring maid from Gd Central to 14 W. 10. His real fare was probably 75c” [NB 43 TS 32].