September 9 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Col. Higginson came up this morning to see Mr. Clemens about making some talk for the Author’s Club and the Round Table. He seems quite feeble, stepping so slowly and gently and his voice and dear chin seem so, so old. I made some photographs of him and Mr. Clemens. Mr. Barbour came up from Boston to see Mr. Clemens about Congo Reform. This afternoon Mr. Clemens and I went down to the Club to see some very interesting photographs made in Labrador by Mr. Wm. Cabot, who had just returned from there. They were the thrown-upon-a-sheet kind, and those of the great ice bound rivers which Mr. Cabot and his Indian guides followed with their sledges, were impressive.
Mr. and Mrs. Franklin MacVeagh, Secretary Hitchcock and his daughter Miss Margaret Hitchcock dined here.
Mrs. Learned and her mother Mrs. Cheney dropped in this morning, and we sat on the porch and talked about literary effort and the value of keeping a journal—especially to a literary man. Mr. Clemens cited Macaulay’s journal and Mrs. Learned spoke of the voluminous journal that John Quincy Adams kept with all else that he had to do. That drifted the talk along to “whatever anybody writes so that it is an honest diary, it would be interesting” and Mr. Clemens spoke of the splendid Robinson Crusoe narrative and how interested you are in everything he took away from the ship.
Tonight after dinner when Mr. and Mrs. MacVeagh and Secretary Hitchcock were here, when the gentlemen joined us after dinner and this peace was mentioned, Secretary Hitchcock spoke enthusiastically of the Czar and his good works and good intentions and he thinks the Grand Dukes aren’t such a bad lot; but of the welfare of the 140,000,000 common souls ad the terrible poverty and the ignorance and the suffering, we hadn’t much knowledge of or much sympathy for. There isn’t much reason for him to have, for he was in St. Petersburg to represent his country and not to investigate the miseries of Russia and the Grand Dukes naturally enough put all their best feet forward, as it was in their interests to do.
This morning Mr. Clemens in speaking of Secretary Hitchcock told of his great ability in his position as Secretary of the Interior and how but for the fool juries, many more scamps would be hunted down to their just punishments [MTP TS 96].Note: The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, etc. by George Otto Trevelyan (1876). Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1835-1909), served as Secretary of Interior under McKinley and Roosevelt. William Brooks Cabot (1858-1949), Boston civil engineer and close friend of Abbott Thayer.
Col. Higginson came up this morning to see Mr. Clemens about making some talk for the Author’s Club and the Round Table. He seems quite feeble, stepping so slowly and gently and his voice and dear chin seem so, so old. I made some photographs of him and Mr. Clemens. Mr. Barbour came up from Boston to see Mr. Clemens about Congo Reform. This afternoon Mr. Clemens and I went down to the Club to see some very interesting photographs made in Labrador by Mr. Wm. Cabot, who had just returned from there. They were the thrown-upon-a-sheet kind, and those of the great ice bound rivers which Mr. Cabot and his Indian guides followed with their sledges, were impressive.
Mr. and Mrs. Franklin MacVeagh, Secretary Hitchcock and his daughter Miss Margaret Hitchcock dined here.
Mrs. Learned and her mother Mrs. Cheney dropped in this morning, and we sat on the porch and talked about literary effort and the value of keeping a journal—especially to a literary man. Mr. Clemens cited Macaulay’s journal and Mrs. Learned spoke of the voluminous journal that John Quincy Adams kept with all else that he had to do. That drifted the talk along to “whatever anybody writes so that it is an honest diary, it would be interesting” and Mr. Clemens spoke of the splendid Robinson Crusoe narrative and how interested you are in everything he took away from the ship.
Tonight after dinner when Mr. and Mrs. MacVeagh and Secretary Hitchcock were here, when the gentlemen joined us after dinner and this peace was mentioned, Secretary Hitchcock spoke enthusiastically of the Czar and his good works and good intentions and he thinks the Grand Dukes aren’t such a bad lot; but of the welfare of the 140,000,000 common souls ad the terrible poverty and the ignorance and the suffering, we hadn’t much knowledge of or much sympathy for. There isn’t much reason for him to have, for he was in St. Petersburg to represent his country and not to investigate the miseries of Russia and the Grand Dukes naturally enough put all their best feet forward, as it was in their interests to do.
This morning Mr. Clemens in speaking of Secretary Hitchcock told of his great ability in his position as Secretary of the Interior and how but for the fool juries, many more scamps would be hunted down to their just punishments [MTP TS 96].Note: The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, etc. by George Otto Trevelyan (1876). Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1835-1909), served as Secretary of Interior under McKinley and Roosevelt. William Brooks Cabot (1858-1949), Boston civil engineer and close friend of Abbott Thayer.
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