June 24 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell. After several pages of bile dumped about Theodore Roosevelt, though he believed “praise & blame” were “unwarrantable terms when applied to coffee-mills”—in other words, man has no more control over his acts than a coffee-mill—Sam wrote of his work and daughters:

I began a new book here in this enchanting solitude 35 days ago. I have done 33 full days’ work on it. To-day I have not worked. There was another day in this present month wherein I did not work—you will know that date without my telling you.

I have written you to-day, not to do you a service, but to do myself one. There was bile in me. I had to empty it, or lose my day to-morrow. If I tried to empty it into the North American Review—oh, well, I couldn’t afford the risk. No, the certainty! The certainty that I wouldn’t be satisfied with the result; so I would burn it, & try again to-morrow; burn that, & try again next day. It happens so, nearly every time. I have a family to support, & I can’t afford this kind of dissipation. Last winter when I was sick I wrote a magazine article three times before I got it to suit me. I put $500 worth of work on it every day for ten days; & at last, when I got it to suit me it contained but 3,000 words—$900. I burned it, & said I would reform.

And I have reformed. I have to work my bile off, whenever it gets to where I can’t stand it, but I can work it off on you economically, because I don’t have to make it suit me. It may not suit you, but that isn’t any matter, I’m not writing it for that. I have used you as an equilibrium-restorer more than once in my time, & shall continue, I guess. I would like to use Mr. Rogers, & he is plenty good-natured enough, but it wouldn’t be fair to keep him busy rescuing me from my leather-headed business-snarls & make him read interminable bile-irruptions besides; I can’t use Howells, he is busy & old & lazy, & won’t stand it; I dasn’t use Clara, there’s things I have to say which she wouldn’t put up with—a very dear little ashcat, but has claws.

And so—you’re It.

I suppose you saw Clara day before yesterday. She wrote that she was going to ask you to stay over night in her house. I judge by that that Dr . Quintard is beginning to be less exacting with her, less strenuous. It’s a happy sign. Jean is in fine strength, & does a deal of wholesome driving & horsebacking. There is nothing like the open air; I often look out of the window myself. Love to you all. / Mark [MTP]. Note: the book Sam began 35 days prior (May 20) and abandoned on June 23 was the unfinished “3,000 Years Among the Microbes,” as told from the point of view of a cholera microbe. In Isabel’s journal for June 26, she states this letter had been “sent on Saturday and stopped,” indicating he may have delayed it or not sent it.

Isabel Lyon’s Journal: This afternoon Jean went off on Scott [horse] for the first time in a long, long time. His back has been so sore. Mr. Clemens came down saying that he was going to see Mr. Thayer, and he started with a step as light as a boy’s. As Jean and I sat discussing Scott’s rather frolicsome behavior, Mr. Clemens returned uttlerly exhausted. It had been a steep scramble, he had slipped and fallen, for he wore his thin house shoes and the soles are as smooth as satin. He didn’t get any farther than the Pembertons, just below here, and after he had rested a bit down stairs, he took his Suetonius and went up stairs to sleep a little. Mr. Clemens told us that some of the Pemberton’s were coming to call—so we frocked us, and they came.

After dinner we hadn’t any ms. reading, for Mr. Clemens had put all his morning into a long letter to Mr. Twichell, but he talked. Oh, how he talked—until nearly ten o’clock. We were talking of mistakes people make. Ugo in particular, this time—and Teresa said “Ah, who is there that does not make mistakes—only in Paradise, Signorina, are those who make no mistakes.” When I told Mr. Clemens he said, “She hasn’t got the latest returns from there, or she’d know differently.” Teresa is desperate because she does not learn English rapidly. She knows that what Mr. Clemens writes is diverting and when I told her encouragingly that some day she would read his books, she said, “Ah, Signorina, when I can read English I shall have been dead twenty years.” [MTP TS 69]. Note: Suetonius Tranquillus C. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Trans. In 1796 by Alexander Thomson; 1876 ed. Ugo and Teresa Cherubini were servants who returned with the Clemens family from Florence.

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Miss Clemens [Clara] was in N.Y. on this date & the throat specialist that she consulted has said that she must not sing a note for four months. The vocal chords are affected by the appendical operation” MTP TS 21].

Frank J. Firth wrote from Phila. to Sam, sending blank sheets for Sam’s autograph and “a few lines” to be used in Twain books for the benefit of the Germantown Hospital [MTP]. Note: Miss Lyon wrote on the bottom: “Mr. Clemens prepared / the sheets & ‘then got afraid’—/ and wrote for his indentification”

Norman Hapgood for Collier’s Weekly wrote to thank Sam “for helping to keep me up with all the work the Creator of our blessings is doing for his unworthy subjects.” He hoped to see Sam soon and sent regards to Jean Clemens [MTP].