February 2 Friday – Jean Clemens suffered three more epileptic attacks. Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Jean—9 A.M., 6 P.M., 10 P.M.
I had a very plain talk with Mr. Clemens this morning about Jean’s condition and told him how on Tuesday I had talked with Dr. [Edward] Quintard. The dreadfulness of it all swept over him as I knew it would and with that fiercest of all his looks in his face he blazed out against the swindle of life and the treachery of a God that can create disease and misery and crime—create things that men would be condemned for creating—that men would be ashamed to create. Looking up at the face of little Jean—the picture that hangs over Mr. Clemens’s bed—one can seem to see angry, pitiful, helpless tears there—tears over the swindle of her life. Dr. Quintard is going to change her treatment, and they are going to give up Dr. Starr.
This afternoon a messenger came with a note from Mr. Frank Fuller asking Mr. Clemens to call on Mr. Fuller’s ill, ill wife. I telephoned to him that Mr. Clemens would be happy to do so, and tomorrow afternoon at 5 has been set for the call. When I went up to Mr. Clemens’s room with a second note from Mr. Fuller, this time a note of gratitude, I asked Mr. Clemens about Mr. Fuller and he said that he was acting Governor of the Territory of Utah in 1861 when Mr. Clemens stopped there for 2 or 3 days on his way to the Pacific Coast for the first time. He went on to say that now “Fuller is a thousand years old, but he didn’t look it until a year ago” (his voice sounded crackly with age over the telephone) and that in those early days in 1867 when Mr. Clemens came east, Mr. Fuller met him in New York and because he had a local reputation in California wanted to have him lecture in New York’s biggest hall, Cooper Union, and they’d pack the house. Mr. Clemens said it couldn’t be done, Mr. Fuller said it could, so he started in to advertise this new lecturer and kept it up for 8 days, but it “didn’t draw a customer”. Mr. Clemens said then that they must paper the house—so Fuller sent bushel baskets of complimentary tickets to all the teachers of all the schools in or near New York, and to swell people in the city and the place was crammed, even the platform. People were turned away in shoals—and the manager took in $35. Got it from curious folks who wondered what was going on and so paid their dollar apiece to satisfy their curiosity. Characteristically Mr. Clemens didn’t tell whether he pleased those people or not [MTP TS 22-23; also Hill 121 in part].
Clemens’ A.D. for this day continued the subject of Feb. 1—The Death of Susy Clemens— Ends with mention of Dr. John Brown [AMT 1: 323-328].
American Mechanical Cashier sent a notice of a stockholders’ meeting on Feb. 13 at 3.30 p.m. in Jersey City [MTP].
The Architectural League sent an engraved invitation for their annual dinner on this evening at 7 p.m. in the American Fine Arts Building, requesting an answer [MTP].
Nanon Toby wrote from NYC to Sam. Toby had been a fan since childhood, and requested Sam to send him any “literary aspirants” requesting criticism that Clemens had no time for [MTP].
Jean—9 A.M., 6 P.M., 10 P.M.
I had a very plain talk with Mr. Clemens this morning about Jean’s condition and told him how on Tuesday I had talked with Dr. [Edward] Quintard. The dreadfulness of it all swept over him as I knew it would and with that fiercest of all his looks in his face he blazed out against the swindle of life and the treachery of a God that can create disease and misery and crime—create things that men would be condemned for creating—that men would be ashamed to create. Looking up at the face of little Jean—the picture that hangs over Mr. Clemens’s bed—one can seem to see angry, pitiful, helpless tears there—tears over the swindle of her life. Dr. Quintard is going to change her treatment, and they are going to give up Dr. Starr.
This afternoon a messenger came with a note from Mr. Frank Fuller asking Mr. Clemens to call on Mr. Fuller’s ill, ill wife. I telephoned to him that Mr. Clemens would be happy to do so, and tomorrow afternoon at 5 has been set for the call. When I went up to Mr. Clemens’s room with a second note from Mr. Fuller, this time a note of gratitude, I asked Mr. Clemens about Mr. Fuller and he said that he was acting Governor of the Territory of Utah in 1861 when Mr. Clemens stopped there for 2 or 3 days on his way to the Pacific Coast for the first time. He went on to say that now “Fuller is a thousand years old, but he didn’t look it until a year ago” (his voice sounded crackly with age over the telephone) and that in those early days in 1867 when Mr. Clemens came east, Mr. Fuller met him in New York and because he had a local reputation in California wanted to have him lecture in New York’s biggest hall, Cooper Union, and they’d pack the house. Mr. Clemens said it couldn’t be done, Mr. Fuller said it could, so he started in to advertise this new lecturer and kept it up for 8 days, but it “didn’t draw a customer”. Mr. Clemens said then that they must paper the house—so Fuller sent bushel baskets of complimentary tickets to all the teachers of all the schools in or near New York, and to swell people in the city and the place was crammed, even the platform. People were turned away in shoals—and the manager took in $35. Got it from curious folks who wondered what was going on and so paid their dollar apiece to satisfy their curiosity. Characteristically Mr. Clemens didn’t tell whether he pleased those people or not [MTP TS 22-23; also Hill 121 in part].
Clemens’ A.D. for this day continued the subject of Feb. 1—The Death of Susy Clemens— Ends with mention of Dr. John Brown [AMT 1: 323-328].
American Mechanical Cashier sent a notice of a stockholders’ meeting on Feb. 13 at 3.30 p.m. in Jersey City [MTP].
The Architectural League sent an engraved invitation for their annual dinner on this evening at 7 p.m. in the American Fine Arts Building, requesting an answer [MTP].
Nanon Toby wrote from NYC to Sam. Toby had been a fan since childhood, and requested Sam to send him any “literary aspirants” requesting criticism that Clemens had no time for [MTP].
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