August 29 Tuesday – Sam left Boston on an early train to Dublin, N.H., about a three-hour trip.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens arrived today, from Norfolk, quite white and showing the traces of his suffering. After his lunch he went wearily, wearily to his bed, and he slept. He is so good. This evening a telegram [not extant] came from Mr. Tayler of the Boston Globe officially announcing “Peace” and asking for a word from Mr. Clemens. He sat up in bed and wrote the word, such a strong word—and at 10 o’clock I telephoned it to Boston [see below] …
Jean was off on a hayride and so I played over to Mr. Clemens his favorite pieces when he came down stairs at about 8 o’clock [MTP TS 92]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Clemens telephoned his opinion [on the peace]. 199 words” [MTP TS 26].
Sam’s note on the Russo-Japanese Treaty, telephoned by Isabel Lyon to the Boston Globe, reprinted here from the Wilkes-Barre (Penn.) Times, p.1:
MARK TWAIN SAYS PEACE
WILL RE-RIVET POLITICAL CHAINS ON
MILLIONS OF RUSSIAN PEOPLE
———
BOSTON, Mass., Aug. 30.—In a dispatch to the Globe from Durham, N.H., Mark Twain has this to say about the Russo-Japanese peace settlement: “Russia was on the high road to emancipation from an insane and intolerable slavery; I was hoping there would be no peace until Russian liberty was safe. I think that this was a holy war in the best and noblest sense of that abused term and no war was ever charged with a higher mission. I think there can be no doubt that that mission is now defeated and Russian’s chains rerivited, this time to stay.
“I think the Czar will now withdraw the small humanities that have been forced from him and resume his medieval barbarisms with a relieved spirit and an immeasurable joy. I think Russian liberty has had its last chance and has lost it. I think nothing has been gained by the peace that is remotely comparable to what has been sacrificed by it. One more battle would have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of unborn Russians and I wish it could have been fought.
“I hope I am mistaken, yet in all sincerity I believe that this peace is entitled to rank as the most conspicuous disaster in political history.”
Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote on Koy-Lo Co. letterhead to Sam, enclosing a copy of a letter rec’d that morning from Lauterbach, and a quotation he forwarded to Hammond. “I don’t know the author, but thought it was worthy of Socrates, so gave him the credit for it” [MTP].
Jesse Bryan wrote from St. Louis, Mo. to Sam asking if he was related to his family as he was collecting genealogy [MTP]. Note: on the env. “Referred him to Bryan Clemens, St. Louis”
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens arrived today, from Norfolk, quite white and showing the traces of his suffering. After his lunch he went wearily, wearily to his bed, and he slept. He is so good. This evening a telegram [not extant] came from Mr. Tayler of the Boston Globe officially announcing “Peace” and asking for a word from Mr. Clemens. He sat up in bed and wrote the word, such a strong word—and at 10 o’clock I telephoned it to Boston [see below] …
Jean was off on a hayride and so I played over to Mr. Clemens his favorite pieces when he came down stairs at about 8 o’clock [MTP TS 92]. Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Mr. Clemens telephoned his opinion [on the peace]. 199 words” [MTP TS 26].
Sam’s note on the Russo-Japanese Treaty, telephoned by Isabel Lyon to the Boston Globe, reprinted here from the Wilkes-Barre (Penn.) Times, p.1:
MARK TWAIN SAYS PEACE
WILL RE-RIVET POLITICAL CHAINS ON
MILLIONS OF RUSSIAN PEOPLE
———
BOSTON, Mass., Aug. 30.—In a dispatch to the Globe from Durham, N.H., Mark Twain has this to say about the Russo-Japanese peace settlement: “Russia was on the high road to emancipation from an insane and intolerable slavery; I was hoping there would be no peace until Russian liberty was safe. I think that this was a holy war in the best and noblest sense of that abused term and no war was ever charged with a higher mission. I think there can be no doubt that that mission is now defeated and Russian’s chains rerivited, this time to stay.
“I think the Czar will now withdraw the small humanities that have been forced from him and resume his medieval barbarisms with a relieved spirit and an immeasurable joy. I think Russian liberty has had its last chance and has lost it. I think nothing has been gained by the peace that is remotely comparable to what has been sacrificed by it. One more battle would have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of unborn Russians and I wish it could have been fought.
“I hope I am mistaken, yet in all sincerity I believe that this peace is entitled to rank as the most conspicuous disaster in political history.”
Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote on Koy-Lo Co. letterhead to Sam, enclosing a copy of a letter rec’d that morning from Lauterbach, and a quotation he forwarded to Hammond. “I don’t know the author, but thought it was worthy of Socrates, so gave him the credit for it” [MTP].
Jesse Bryan wrote from St. Louis, Mo. to Sam asking if he was related to his family as he was collecting genealogy [MTP]. Note: on the env. “Referred him to Bryan Clemens, St. Louis”
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