July 17 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara.
You dear, read these & return them. No, there is no need of “private”—no one will open your letter. Do not write about the letters —it is a secret of mine—just return them without comment.
Jean & I were out from 5 yesterday until 8, calling, & had a good time. We sup with Raphael Pumpelly this evening.
This morning I gutted the old “Adam’s Diary ” & removed every blemish from it, & now it is clean & refined & good, & will offend no one. Miss Lyon voted against the revision, but she wouldn’t vote against it now. I’ve read it to her. / I love you, dear! [MTP].
Note: Raphael Pumpelly (1837-1923), American geologist, anthropoligist and explorer, was influenced by Louis Agassiz. He was Professor of Mining Science at Harvard, and resident of Newport, R.I. for 44 years; he spent his summers in the Dublin area near Mt. Monadnock (3,165 ft), which Jean Clemens climbed. Pumpelly blazed a trail from his house to the summit that still bears his name.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: This afternoon Mr. Clemens came downstairs with the news that the has revised the “Adam’s Diary.” He read it to me as we sat on the porch, and it is very lovely. He has eliminated the harshnesses. He told me that when he wrote it in Florence years ago that it was literature then, but he was requested to change it, and so he put in things about Niagara Falls and Buffalo to make it an advertisement, and satisfy some man. Adam’s recognition of Eve’s beauty is very lovely. I think Mr. Clemens grows fuller of poetry all the time, certainly there is no greater man than he. He says terrible, terrible things of the human race—but in the next breath, he melts with sweetness over some human deed. He makes your heart stand still with terror, over the things he can say [MTP TS 78-80].
S. Smallwood wrote a postcard from Moss Fields, England to ask Sam about his description of the Sphinx in IA, where he had described it as having “the tail of a fish in the lower part, the body with wings, & a human head.” No other description she’d found painted it this way, but with the figure of a lion and a human head. Did he still feel he was correct? [MTP].
Sam and daughter Jean dined with Mr. and Mrs. Raphael Pumpelly [Gribben 562: IVL Journal entry July 18]. See Oct. 9 for info. on Pumpelly.
You dear, read these & return them. No, there is no need of “private”—no one will open your letter. Do not write about the letters —it is a secret of mine—just return them without comment.
Jean & I were out from 5 yesterday until 8, calling, & had a good time. We sup with Raphael Pumpelly this evening.
This morning I gutted the old “Adam’s Diary ” & removed every blemish from it, & now it is clean & refined & good, & will offend no one. Miss Lyon voted against the revision, but she wouldn’t vote against it now. I’ve read it to her. / I love you, dear! [MTP].
Note: Raphael Pumpelly (1837-1923), American geologist, anthropoligist and explorer, was influenced by Louis Agassiz. He was Professor of Mining Science at Harvard, and resident of Newport, R.I. for 44 years; he spent his summers in the Dublin area near Mt. Monadnock (3,165 ft), which Jean Clemens climbed. Pumpelly blazed a trail from his house to the summit that still bears his name.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: This afternoon Mr. Clemens came downstairs with the news that the has revised the “Adam’s Diary.” He read it to me as we sat on the porch, and it is very lovely. He has eliminated the harshnesses. He told me that when he wrote it in Florence years ago that it was literature then, but he was requested to change it, and so he put in things about Niagara Falls and Buffalo to make it an advertisement, and satisfy some man. Adam’s recognition of Eve’s beauty is very lovely. I think Mr. Clemens grows fuller of poetry all the time, certainly there is no greater man than he. He says terrible, terrible things of the human race—but in the next breath, he melts with sweetness over some human deed. He makes your heart stand still with terror, over the things he can say [MTP TS 78-80].
S. Smallwood wrote a postcard from Moss Fields, England to ask Sam about his description of the Sphinx in IA, where he had described it as having “the tail of a fish in the lower part, the body with wings, & a human head.” No other description she’d found painted it this way, but with the figure of a lion and a human head. Did he still feel he was correct? [MTP].
Sam and daughter Jean dined with Mr. and Mrs. Raphael Pumpelly [Gribben 562: IVL Journal entry July 18]. See Oct. 9 for info. on Pumpelly.
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