November 24 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y., Sam spoke into a graphophone, dictating a letter that Isabel Lyon later wrote to Dr. Osgood:

Dear Dr. Osgood:

Your letter gives me very great pleasure. I believe there is no greater pleasure than that which one gets out of a compliment heartily expressed. Your warm words have gone to my heart and I am grateful for them.

Yes, I have been in your house, and shall expect to be in it again next year and often. I paid a long visit to those dear and delightful Pearmains in Boston and I am sure I could not have felt more entirely at home if I had been under my own roof. Moreover I got my health restored there. For many months I had been fighting a losing fight with dyspepsia—at least I supposed it was dyspepsia—and Mrs. Pearmain cured me by a very simple and rational process. I had given up eating almost altogether, because everything I ate seemed to disagree with me; but she required me to begin eating again; not only eating, but eating very frequently and not much at a time; and she required me to keep up this system in the night as well as in the day. I made the experiment and I am still carrying on the process according to her directions, and I have no further trouble about dyspepsia.

I can eat all sorts of sweet things; I can eat gum, shoes, nails, anything. I can digest anything that goes into my stomach, without any trouble, therefore I am under a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Pearmain which I suppose I shall never be able to pay.

Hoping to see you in Dublin next summer,

I am, dear Doctor,

yours very Sincerely,

S L Clemens.

P.S. This is my first experiment in dictating a letter to a graphophone, and I am thoroughly delighted with it. I shall never use the slow & tedious pen again [Robert Slotta sale on eBay, item 1804024039 Aug. 31, 2009]. Note: regrettably all recordings of Sam’s voice have been lost.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Mr. Clemens left for Washington this morning. He went off with Col. Harvey, on copyright” [MTP TS 110].

Sam and his publisher, Col. George B. Harvey, went to Washington, D.C. and took rooms in the New Willard Hotel. In September, he had agreed to be an officer in the American Congo Reform Association, that published his King Leopold’s Soliloquy at the end of September. This trip was a four-day lobbying trip in the Association’s behalf, culminating by a luncheon with President Theodore Roosevelt. Sam would return to New York on Nov. 27. See Nov. 28 apology to Mrs. Roosevelt for unloading the “burden” on the President.

Sam inscribed a copy of TS with his “June-bug” aphorism to Everett J. Brett [Nov. 21 to Putnam; MTP].

Richard R. Bowker (1848-1933), journalist, editor, and founder of R.R. Bowker & Co., wrote birthday wishes to Sam, liking the idea of the President inviting a general thanksgiving on that day [MTP].

A.R. Cross wrote to Sam, asking if he remembered meeting him at Laurence Hutton’s Princeton house, and asking him to dine with them on Wednesday, Dec. 20 at 8 p.m. to meet Miss May Sinclair (1862-1946) author of The Divine Fire (1904), who hoped to meet him [MTP]. Note: see Gribben p. 644.

James F. Mallinckrodt wrote from St. Louis to Sam, signing the letter “John Think.” He liked the Diary of Eve, saying “that is just the way Lady Eve probably talked and wrote,” and added “I first knew you about 35 years ago, floating Galaxies every month. Now you are floating –or it, she, or he is floating you—the great Harper’s Christmas Magazine” [MTP].

Michael Monahan wrote birthday wishes to Sam [MTP].

C. Brereton Sharpe for the Plasmon Syndicate wrote to Sam.

“We are in receipt of your cablegram [not extant] reading as follows: ‘Power of Attorney too limited Meeting will not be held General Power of Attorney required to negotiate settlement with Hammond’ / In accordance therewith we now enclose a fresh Power of Attorney which was executed at a Special Board Meeting of the Company held yesterday.” They hoped an agreement might be reached with Hammond for the reorganization of the American Plasmon Co. [MTP].

November 24 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to Thomas S. Barbour [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs Sam’s reply as “on or after 23 November.” One additional day estimated postal time is allowed here.