September 24 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Susan Crane.
DUBLIN, Sept. 24, ’05.
Susy dear, I have had a lovely dream. Livy, dressed in black, was sitting up in my bed (here) at my right & looking as young & sweet as she used to do when she was in health. She said: “what is the name of your sweet sister?” I said, “Pamela.” “Oh yes, that is it, I thought it was— (naming a name which has escaped me) “Won’t you write it down for me?” I reached eagerly for a pen & pad—laid my hands upon both—then said to myself, “It is only a dream,” & turned back sorrowfully & there she was, still. The conviction flamed through me that our lamented disaster was a dream, & this a reality. I said, “How blessed it is, how blessed it is, it was all a dream, only a dream!” She only smiled & did not ask what dream I meant, which surprised me. She leaned her head against mine & I kept saying, “I was perfectly sure it was a dream, I never would have believed it wasn’t.”
I think she said several things, but if so they are gone from my memory. I woke & did not know I had been dreaming. She was gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did not spend any thought upon that, I was too busy thinking of how vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her & how unspeakably blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was still ours & with us. / S. L. C. [MTP: Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain’s Letters, p.777].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I made 6 photos of the plaster cast sent to Mr. Clemens by Mr. [John] Marr, and then I read, sewed and wrote” [MTP TS 102].
A.T. Richardson wrote from North Yakima, Wash. to Sam, enclosing a six-page story he’d written, borrowing from characters in CY, for Sam to comment on. The return stamped env. provided is still in the file, unused, and no comments were written by Sam, who invariably ignored such requsts [MTP].
The New York Times, p. SM3 ran an excerpt from Mark Twain’s new volume Editorial Wild Oats and announced that Harper & Brothers would issue the book sometime this week. (The Times had reported on Sept. 9, 1905, p. BR591, that the volume would be issued on Sept. 14— There may have been a mixup in the newspaper or a delay in issuing the book). This little volume contained the following sketches, some new, some reprints: “My First Literary Venture,” “Journalism in Tennessee,” “Nicodemus Dodge, Printer,” “Mr. Bloke’s Item,” “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper,” and “The Killing of Julius Caesar ‘Localized’.” Note: See Sept. 16 to Duneka and Sept. 19 from Duneka.
DUBLIN, Sept. 24, ’05.
Susy dear, I have had a lovely dream. Livy, dressed in black, was sitting up in my bed (here) at my right & looking as young & sweet as she used to do when she was in health. She said: “what is the name of your sweet sister?” I said, “Pamela.” “Oh yes, that is it, I thought it was— (naming a name which has escaped me) “Won’t you write it down for me?” I reached eagerly for a pen & pad—laid my hands upon both—then said to myself, “It is only a dream,” & turned back sorrowfully & there she was, still. The conviction flamed through me that our lamented disaster was a dream, & this a reality. I said, “How blessed it is, how blessed it is, it was all a dream, only a dream!” She only smiled & did not ask what dream I meant, which surprised me. She leaned her head against mine & I kept saying, “I was perfectly sure it was a dream, I never would have believed it wasn’t.”
I think she said several things, but if so they are gone from my memory. I woke & did not know I had been dreaming. She was gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did not spend any thought upon that, I was too busy thinking of how vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her & how unspeakably blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was still ours & with us. / S. L. C. [MTP: Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain’s Letters, p.777].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I made 6 photos of the plaster cast sent to Mr. Clemens by Mr. [John] Marr, and then I read, sewed and wrote” [MTP TS 102].
A.T. Richardson wrote from North Yakima, Wash. to Sam, enclosing a six-page story he’d written, borrowing from characters in CY, for Sam to comment on. The return stamped env. provided is still in the file, unused, and no comments were written by Sam, who invariably ignored such requsts [MTP].
The New York Times, p. SM3 ran an excerpt from Mark Twain’s new volume Editorial Wild Oats and announced that Harper & Brothers would issue the book sometime this week. (The Times had reported on Sept. 9, 1905, p. BR591, that the volume would be issued on Sept. 14— There may have been a mixup in the newspaper or a delay in issuing the book). This little volume contained the following sketches, some new, some reprints: “My First Literary Venture,” “Journalism in Tennessee,” “Nicodemus Dodge, Printer,” “Mr. Bloke’s Item,” “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper,” and “The Killing of Julius Caesar ‘Localized’.” Note: See Sept. 16 to Duneka and Sept. 19 from Duneka.
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