September 20 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

I’m a little disappointed in the photographs made of Col. Higginson. The day was too far spent for the light to be right enough. Santissima is in Boston or New York. She went to the former city to see Mary Lawton play Tess. I must believe that she would be stronger in the role of a pure woman like Tess for she isn’t enough of an artist yet to play a Magda without making you feel that she’s playing it, or so I think. Then Santissima went to N.Y. to see a throat specialist. Miss Alling is still with her [MTP TS 100-101].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: sent to Mr. Bartons / copy of note added to Congo pamphlet: [“]Very well, then, the King has investigated himself. One stage is achieved. The next one in order is the investigation of conditions in the Congo State by the Powers responsible for the creation of the Congo State. The United States is one of them. Such an investigation is advocated by Lyman, Abbot, Henry Van Dyke, David Starr Jordan, & other prominent citizens, in a petition to the President & Congress[”][MTP TS 29]. Note: the note added is from Clemens.

E.D. of the Knickerbocker Publishing Co. in N.Y.C. wrote to Sam, acknowledging his of Sept. 19 which included Moffet’s sketch of Mark Twain’s life. Was the sketch copyrighted? Would they need permission to put it in their National American Biography? [MTP]. Note: Clemens answered (estimated as ca. Sept 22) that they should ask Harpers and thought they wouldn’t object and hoped they wouldn’t.

Minnie Maddern Fiske wrote from NYC to Sam: “A heartful of gratitude & appreciation / Sincerely…” [MTP]. Note: Paine gives claim that Fiske asked Sam to help in her campaign against bullfighting in Spain, and hoped he might write a similar tale to “A Dog’s Tale”; Sam began and wrote “A Horse’s Tale” which he began on Sept. 23 and finished on Sept. 30, an “eight-day drive & rush” [Oct. 1 to Clara].

September 20 ca. – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Frederick A. Duneka, responding on Duneka’s answer and question of Sept. 19. “M . Clemens will have to think about the anonymous book for a good while, & will not want to publish it without conversing with M . Duneka about it” [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs this as “on or after 19 Sept.” One day estimated postal time is allowed here.