September 21, 1909 Tuesday

September 21 Tuesday — Paine writes of a dream Sam related:

September 21. This morning he told me, with great glee, the dream he had had just before wakening.

He said:
“I was in an automobile going slowly, with ‘a little girl beside me, and some uniformed person walking along by us. I said, ‘I’ll get out and walk, too’; but the officer replied, ‘This is only one of the smallest of our fleet.’

“Then I noticed that the automobile had no front, and there were two cannons mounted where the front should be. I noticed, too, that we were traveling very low, almost down on the ground. Presently we got to the bottom of a hill and started up another, and I found myself walking ahead of the ‘mobile. I turned around to look for the little girl, and instead of her I found a kitten capering beside me, and when we reached the top of the hill we were looking out over a most barren and desolate waste of sand-heaps without a speck of vegetation anywhere, and the kitten said, ‘This view beggars all admiration.’ Then all at once we were in a great group of people and I undertook to repeat to them the kitten’s remark, but when I tried to do it the words were so touching that I broke down and cried, and all the group cried, too, over the kitten’s moving remark.”

The joy with which he told this absurd sleep fancy made it supremely ridiculous and we laughed until tears really came [MTB 1517-18].

In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Schuyler Allen in Franklin, N.Y.

It is altogether too bad, Helen dear, if I’m not to see you. I am not likely to see New York or Bermuda for a long long time. I don’t go out of the house.

But can’t you & your mother run up & see me? It is only a rail-trip of an hour & a half. I would dearly love to see you. Write & tell me, won’t you? / With love, yours [MTP; not in MTAq].

Sam also wrote to William Osler.

Dear Dr. Osler:

I wish I could say yes, it hurts me to say the other thing, but I have said it so long, now (3 years) & so often, that I am at last practically used to it, like the eels, I bound myself to say no in all cases because I found that dividing the matter up & saying yes in some & no in the others made embarrassments for me, & I have this extraordinary peculiarity: that I don’t like embarrassments. But I thank Mr. Thomas for the offered compliment, & you for forwarding it.

I hope you & Mrs. Osler will come out here in the country & see me when you are on this side. It would give me great pleasure.

With kindest regards & best wishes to you both, / Sincerely Yours / SL. Clemens 

I should like to be remembered to Mrs. & Miss Porter when you see them [MTP]. Note: Sir William Osler; see June 3, 1908 listing for bio information.

A concert at Stormfield featuring Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Clara Clemens, and David Bispham took place; by Sam’s estimate 525 people came, filling up the house. The event was a benefit for the Redding Library (Mark Twain Library) and raised $372 for the cause [Sept. 22 to Ogden; Sept. 22 to Wallace]. Note. in a letter to her friend Marguerite Schmidt, Jean wrote that it was on this day that Clara and Ossip decided to marry. The wedding would take place on Oct. 6, 1909 [Hill 243].

The Mark Twain Library Association minutes gave two pages to the event, revealing that Mark Twain introduced the performers. The record here gives $378 raised [copied by Tenney at the Library Nov. 15, 1981].

Later in the day a tea was held for a dozen, including the Hawthornes, Jeannette L. Gilder and her niece. Then a private concert in the library until 10 p.m. which included the “team” of performers from earlier in the day, Mr. & Mrs. Albert Bigelow Paine, Jean Clemens and her dog [Sept. 22 to Ogden; Sept. 22 to Wallace].

Sam’s new guestbook:

Fred Winslow Adams for Schenectady First Methodist wrote to send Sam a copy of his sermon, of which Mark Twain was the subject. If he had misstated facts he welcomed correction, or criticism [MTP].