January 2 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

“I left the River for good in ’61.” Mr. Clemens said that this evening at 6:15 when I went in with a little batch of mail—over his head wreaths of smoke were hovering and he had the [NY] Evening Post for his reading together with the first volume of Gibbon’s Rome. Among the letters I carried in was one from Col. Mann, scared he is because a squib got into Town Topics about Mr. Clemens and he had heard that Mr. Clemens didn’t like it, and so he wrote fearing Mr. Clemens would sue. But Mr. Clemens said “that Colonel isn’t big enough game for me—so he needn’t be scared. Czars and Leopolds are my quarry these days.” At dinner he warmed to the subject of Gibbons and his Rome, and Gibbon the man, whose followings of many creeds made him finally an unbeliever. Church of England, Romanist, Presbyterian, Buddhist. He tried them all. And then Mr. Clemens told of the pretty Geneva girl that Gibbon had been in love with and engaged to—but it was broken off by Gibbon père as a person of no consequence. She married Hecker though, and was the mother of Mme. de Stael with Rosseau for her maiden champion; so much for the inconsequential ones of this earth [MTP TS 2-3; also Gribben 503, 256 in part]. Note: Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. See Sam’s answer to Mann’s Dec. 30, 1905 on Jan. 3.

Will M. Clemens wrote from Salmagundi Club notepaper, NYC, to ask permission for him to “come in some afternoon for a bit of chat” [MTP]. Sam wrote at the top, “No answer.”

Mrs. William T. Lees wrote from Brooklyn to Sam, telling a humorous anecdote about Sam’s being overcharged by a cabman. Her little son exclaimed, “what a pity they took away Mark Twain’s political license—will he write any more books?” She asked for his autograph [MTP].

James A. Renwick wrote to Miss Lyon to acknowledge Sam’s Jan. rent check. He wished Happy New Year [MTP].