October 15 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to George Washington Cable.
Your book came three days ago, your note [not extant] this morning. I finished reading the story night before last. From start to finish it kept me electrically a-tingle with its rush & go, & charmed with its brilliances of phrasing & its other manifold fascinations. Thank you cordially! [MTP]. Note: See Gribben 123. Cable’s book referred to was The Cavalier (1901)
Sam also wrote to William Webster Ellsworth. “The project fascinated me, & I greatly wanted to do it, but I have decided against it. A good half the people would put a disparaging construction upon it & make damage for me” [MTP]. Note: Sam may have been referring to his proposed book on lynchings in the U.S., a recent “project” of his.
Sam also wrote to Mrs. Herbert C. Fisher of Worcester, Mass. declining an invitation to lecture [MTP].
Note: Mrs. Fisher is listed as treasurer for the Worcester Branch of the Woman’s Board of Baldwinsville Hospital Cottages.
Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.
Our Hartford house, stable & grounds (unfurnished) cost $ 111,000 cash. I think you have said that the land is worth what it cost—$31,000. Do you think you could sell the whole $111,000 worth for $60,000—one fourth cash, the rest on long-time notes, interest-bearing, protected properly? Keep it in your mind, & let me know, any time between this & a year hence [MTP].
William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
I remember with satisfaction our joint success in keeping away from the Concord Centennial in 1875, and I have been thinking we might help each other in this matter of the Yale Anniversary. What are your plans for getting left, or shall you trust to inspiration? I am advertised to be in New Haven on the 23d, and I suppose you are to come up for your degree of Doctor of Divinity when I am to get mine of Doctor of Letters. Now, how can we best avoid being present? We ought, if we try it together, to be able to do something handsome. / Yours ever… [MTHL 2: 730]. Note: both men were in New Haven for Yale’s Bi-Centennial (Oct. 21-24); each won an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
A.W. Carson of Joplin, Mo. and “engaged in newspaper work since 1868,” wrote compliments of Twain’s “Sitting in Darkness” article [MTP].
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam: “You are coming to the Yale Bicentennial next week. Hurra! Hurra!!” Joe heard that Clemens would be given an honorary degree, L.H.D. (Doctor of Human Letters), which was Yale’s “only literary decoration.” He advised that Dr. William Scott Ament had been in Hartford the past week, had made a “most noble address” without reference to “the adverse criticism of which he has been the target. He is a big fine fellow, Mark, and you would have felt it before you had listened to him five minutes.” (Joe pasted a Courant clipping here on Ament). “My day with you on the “Kanawha” was a solid delight. But did you ever hear such a yarn as “The Sun” built up on it?”[MTP].
W. Van Benthuysen for the N.Y. World wrote to Sam, detailing the way the payment for his Reichsrath riot cable was calculated (583 words, cable tolls, etc.), and was willing to “come up and see you and go over it all” [MTP]. Note: The World had not fully reimbursed Clemens for his cable fees.