July 6 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Adair Wilson, an old Virginia City acquaintance now in Durango, Colo. Adair had been on the staff of the Va. City Nevada Union.
Forty-two years—why, so it is! A long time, indeed. You & I have no business lingering here, the others are moving on, we are belated. My wife died 13 months ago, after a most dear comradeship of more than a generation; two very very old friends have followed her, & now John Hay, whom I had known longest of my eastern friends; of the early eastern comradeship he leaves behind only Howells & Aldrich. It is time for us to go, Adair, lest we have to travel that long road with strangers.
Last summer I was in a Fifth avenue bus, & opposite me sat a stately & most beautiful young woman, & she said we might quite properly chat together, as her father had known me very well a good many years ago. She was the daughter of the “Unreliable!” Think of it! It made me feel pretty old, you may be sure. / Goodby, & much love [MTP]. Note: See Aug. 11, 1863, Mar. 21, 1888 entries for more on Adair (1841-1912), whom Sam dubbed “The Unimportant.” Clement T. Rice, reporter for the Virginia Daily Union, was “The Unreliable.” See Vol. I entries.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: There wasn’t any manuscript to read this evening, for Mr. Clemens took a novel to bed with him last night. It was “The Accomplice by Frederic Trevor Hill, and he didn’t go to sleep until past 2 o’clock. This morning he came down in a fine mood, and after looking at the pictures in the Boston Journal, out on the porch, he came into the dining room where I sat at the writing table, and as he swung up and down the room right under a plaster medallion of the Virgin, he let out what you ought to call a blasphemous blast that I mustn’t write here. You’d call it a blasphemy, but it isn’t, and it just shows that we’re just the same as the old Greeks who believed in Jupiter and the schemes he invented to accomplish his ends. We’re nothing more. Mrs. Thayer came in about half past five. Mr. Clemens was in Jean’s room and I was playing “Oh du mein holder abendstern”. After dinner, I played for a long time [MTP TS 74; Gribben 314 in part]. Note: she played this from Wagner’s Tannhauser. Frederic Trevor Hill (1866-1930).
Frank J. Firth, president of the Erie & Western Transportation Co., Philadelphia, replied to Isabel Lyon:
I find your note of June 30th awaiting me on returning to my office this morning after several days absence.
I will be very glad, of course, to furnish Mr. Clemens with any identification satisfactory to himself and appreciate what you say about the trouble he has. I thought perhaps he might recall the fact that I addressed a similar communication to him in London several years ago, accompanied I think by a line of introduction from his friend and mine, the late Mr. Lawrence [sic Laurence] Hutton, and Mr. Clemens then kindly sent me a number of book plates with some of his autograph work that were useful in disposing of the books we subsequently offered at our Hospital sale.
If any further identification is needed after you communicate these facts to Mr. Clemens please let me know in what form you would like to have it [MTP]. See July 9 ca. for Sam’s response.
Forty-two years—why, so it is! A long time, indeed. You & I have no business lingering here, the others are moving on, we are belated. My wife died 13 months ago, after a most dear comradeship of more than a generation; two very very old friends have followed her, & now John Hay, whom I had known longest of my eastern friends; of the early eastern comradeship he leaves behind only Howells & Aldrich. It is time for us to go, Adair, lest we have to travel that long road with strangers.
Last summer I was in a Fifth avenue bus, & opposite me sat a stately & most beautiful young woman, & she said we might quite properly chat together, as her father had known me very well a good many years ago. She was the daughter of the “Unreliable!” Think of it! It made me feel pretty old, you may be sure. / Goodby, & much love [MTP]. Note: See Aug. 11, 1863, Mar. 21, 1888 entries for more on Adair (1841-1912), whom Sam dubbed “The Unimportant.” Clement T. Rice, reporter for the Virginia Daily Union, was “The Unreliable.” See Vol. I entries.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: There wasn’t any manuscript to read this evening, for Mr. Clemens took a novel to bed with him last night. It was “The Accomplice by Frederic Trevor Hill, and he didn’t go to sleep until past 2 o’clock. This morning he came down in a fine mood, and after looking at the pictures in the Boston Journal, out on the porch, he came into the dining room where I sat at the writing table, and as he swung up and down the room right under a plaster medallion of the Virgin, he let out what you ought to call a blasphemous blast that I mustn’t write here. You’d call it a blasphemy, but it isn’t, and it just shows that we’re just the same as the old Greeks who believed in Jupiter and the schemes he invented to accomplish his ends. We’re nothing more. Mrs. Thayer came in about half past five. Mr. Clemens was in Jean’s room and I was playing “Oh du mein holder abendstern”. After dinner, I played for a long time [MTP TS 74; Gribben 314 in part]. Note: she played this from Wagner’s Tannhauser. Frederic Trevor Hill (1866-1930).
Frank J. Firth, president of the Erie & Western Transportation Co., Philadelphia, replied to Isabel Lyon:
I find your note of June 30th awaiting me on returning to my office this morning after several days absence.
I will be very glad, of course, to furnish Mr. Clemens with any identification satisfactory to himself and appreciate what you say about the trouble he has. I thought perhaps he might recall the fact that I addressed a similar communication to him in London several years ago, accompanied I think by a line of introduction from his friend and mine, the late Mr. Lawrence [sic Laurence] Hutton, and Mr. Clemens then kindly sent me a number of book plates with some of his autograph work that were useful in disposing of the books we subsequently offered at our Hospital sale.
If any further identification is needed after you communicate these facts to Mr. Clemens please let me know in what form you would like to have it [MTP]. See July 9 ca. for Sam’s response.
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