October 13 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Oct. 12 from William Henry Bishop.
Dear Mr. Bishop: / The Mark Twain Library thanks you cordially, through me, its President, for your welcome contribution and forwards herewith its official receipt.
I offer to you & Mrs. Bishop my best wishes for a safe & pleasant voyage. / Sincerely Yours / ... [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Helen Kerr Blackmer (Mrs. Henry Myron Blackmer) in N.Y.C.
Dear Mrs. Blackmer: / It’s congratulations that are in order—nothing that could happen in the family could please me more. I wanted this wedding 8 years ago, when the engagement was broken twice in 6 months.
I am so glad Margaret is still around! I haven’t heard from that scamp for ages, Except at second hand, 3 days ago, through Betsy Wallace.
I can’t go to Margaret, for I can’t go anywhere—even to see Clara off; so I’ve got to require you & her to come to me. I do certainly want you. I wish it could be now, while the woods are so beautiful & the hickory-nuts raining on you as you pass along. Jean gathered a harvest of them yesterday—but not from Margaret's trees & mine. I’m saving those. Fetch her along as soon as you can. The sooner the better. The woods were never lovelier than they are now. / Affectionately yours, & / with love to Margaret / ... [MTP}.
Sam also wrote to Mrs. Augusta M.D. Ogden in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
Dear Mrs. Ogden: / Indeed yes! Greenwich is close by. Come up to luncheon. Come in the fresh hours of the morning & arrive early. I will provide the proper weather. I am studying for the ministry, & have a pull, as St. Exodus says.
Greenwich! Well—is everybody going to Grinnage? That is where my Margaret is—Margaret Blackmer. She ha's entered school there— “Rosemary Hall.” I have a letter from her mother this morning conveying the news. By George I never heard of such a rush to one place before. And that a mere village!
Name your day. I am always at home, & ready. I do not go away, ever, even to see married daughters off on the steamer.
Drat that plumber, she is suspiciously silent. Do you know, the silence of a plumber always means meditation? & that a plumber’s meditations always mean business? business for the plumber, & expense for some lamb som’ers.
Sincerely yours
S. L. Clemens OVER
Gabrilowitsch is an exceedingly fine fellow & I am glad to have him on the family list. He has done me one service for which I am most thoroughly grateful: he has squelched Clara’s “career.” She is done with the concert-stage—permanently, I pray. I hate the word. I never want to hear it again. I had a “career” of a on the platform. | could not learn to like it; yet it was when I had escaped jail, & the fresh air of freedom ought to have been all-in-all to me, but it was not. I went back, of my own accord, & served out my time. And not only in California, but afterwards in New Jersey & Arkansas & another state—or territory, I do not remember which [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Anna M. Vilas (Mrs. William Freeman Villas).
Dear Mrs. Vilas: / I thank you so much for the Memorial, which I have read with the deepest interest. I had a warm place in my heart for Colonel Vilas, & a great admiration for his lofty gifts & character. I can still vividly see him, as I saw him twenty years ago, lacking a month, at the Grant banquet in Chicago, as he stood upon a table, with his lips closing upon the last word of his magnificent speech, & his happy eyes looking out in contentment over a sea of applauding soldiers glimpsed through a frantic storm of waving napkins—a great picture, a thrilling picture, & one which will never grow dim in my memory.
I thank you again, dear madam, / Sincerely Yours / ... / P.S. No, it was 30 years ago [MTP].
Note: William Freeman Vilas (1840-1908) gave a speech at the Nov. 13, 1879 Chicago banquet for Ulysses S. Grant, where Twain gave his famous “babies” speech. Vilas served in Grover Cleveland’s cabinet (1885-1889) and was a senator from Wisconsin (1891-1897). Sam wrote Livy on Nov. 14, 1879 remarking of Vilas’ speech, “O, wasn’t it wonderful.”
Ambrose Bierce wrote from Wash. DC congratulations to Sam on Clara’s wedding [MTP].
Sarah E.R. Fitzwilliam wrote from Chicago to give a dollar to the Redding Library and asked for Sam’s autographed receipt [MTP].
Richard E. Johnston wrote to Sam. “I received your letter and the same is very good, We are having copies of them made and we will send it to each person who has engaged your daughter” [MTP].
Lincoln National Bank per David C. Grant wrote to Sam that as requested in Sam’s Oct. 10 letter, they had a letter of credit for £500.00 made out to Clara; also they’d sent a draft for M.700.00 on Berlin, Germany sent to Jean L, Clemens, at her request [MTP].
Bernard S. Phelps, Phelps Shoe Co., New Orleans wrote to ask for an autograph [MTP].
George Morris Philips wrote to Sam,having mailed “Your Autobiography and First Romance” for Sam to “write a few words” in [MTP]. Note: “Howells story / answered”