January 7 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

This morning Mr. Clemens was speaking of Roosevelt and his great blustering, and he said that “he is magnificent when his ears are pricked up and his tail is in the air and he attacks a lightning express, only to be lost in the dust the express creates.” Col. Harvey and Dorothy [Harvey] came this afternoon and took Mr. Clemens off in the ‘mobile. Mr. Clemens never speaks heedlessly, he never says things without backbones in them and he never, never wastes words. This morning he illuminated the subject of the terrible cruelty of God. He threw the awful searchlight of his fearless speech upon it and he is so convincing that you feel as if you’d been in the presence of God himself, and when you leave the room your head dizzy and ringing with his contempt of the cowardice of the clergy [MTP TS 6-7].