Submitted by scott on

March 4 Sunday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.

Henry Robinson’s death is a sharp wound to me, & it goes very deep. I had a strong affection for him, & I think he had for me. Every Friday, three-fourths of the year for 16 years he was of the billiard-party in our house. When we come home, how shall we have billiard-nights again—with no Ned Bunce & no Henry Robinson? I believe I could not endure that. We must find another use for that room. Susy is gone, George [Griffin] is gone, Libby Hamersley, Ned Bunce, Henry Robinson. The friends are passing, one by one; our house, where such warm blood & such dear blood flowed so freely, is become a cemetery. But not in any repellant sense. Our dead are welcome there; their life made it beautiful, their death has hallowed it, we shall have them with us always, & there will be no more parting.

It was a moving address you made over Ward Cheney—that fortunate youth! Like Susy, he got out of life all that was worth the living, & got his great reward before he had crossed the tropic frontier of dreams & entered the Sahara of fact. The deep consciousness of Susy’s good fortune is a constant comfort to me.

Sam reported that the city was “happy-hearted at last,” with Britain’s victory in the Boer war. The Clemenses had gone to several private dinner parties, though no public ones. He told of a dinner party the night before last as well as last night, where most of the company were Irish or Scotch [MTP]. Note: Ward Cheney (1875-1900), First Lieutenant of the 4th Infantry in the Spanish-American War, died on Jan. 7 near Imus, Philippines, while leading troops against a force of 500 [Washington Times, May 11, 1900 p.5]. Ward was the son of Frank W. Cheney.

Sam also wrote to Henry Ferguson [MTP]. Note: UCCL 13207 letter is currently unavailable at MTP.

Sam also finished his Feb. 27 letter to H.H. Rogers, remarking of the country’s elation at the surrender on Feb. 27 of Boer General Piet Arnoldus Cronjé (1836-1911) at Paardeberg (“Horse Mountain”) to British General Frederick Sleigh Roberts (1832-1914):

In all her life England has never seen such a tremendous change of mood as these recent victories has caused. The heavy gloom of the past 5 months disappeared in an hour, & everybody went quietly mad for joy. Some went boisterously mad, but that was only the young & giddy—students, street Arabs, & members of the Stock Exchange.

Sam related Harpers cabling him, “What is Professor Ferguson’s Hartford address?” with the ridiculous assumption that there were 500 colleges in the village of Hartford and a professor Ferguson in each. “They need an Intelligence Department—presided over by a cat.” He closed the letter by welcoming the new baby boy to the Broughtons (Henry Rogers Broughton (1900-1973), their second son) [MTHHR 433-5]. Note: Henry Ferguson was a professor at Trinity College, and one of the Hornet survivors in 1866.

Colonel Minster wrote to Sam; only the envelope survives [MTP].

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.   

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