February 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Dennis J. Mahoney.
Dear M . Mahoney: / If you go on trying to make better Americans of the people whom you meet you cannot be better employed. You will be doing your best, you will be doing your full share, & nothing more can be required of any man. / May you prosper— … [MTP]. Note: Mahoney not further identified.
Sam also wrote to Gertrude Natkin, 138 W. 98 in N.Y.C.
Now then, dear, I will recal myself to your remembrance—then I will proceed. Do you remember coming out of Carnegie Hall one day & exchanging views concerning the weather with a white-headed patriarch with a limp & a glass eye? Very well, I am that patriarch. And so, to business. A gentleman has just been here who represents the West Side Y. M. C. A., & he says that every Sunday afternoon at 3.30 p.m he fills the Majestic Theatre, 59 & Broadway, with his young fellows & they listen to lectures furnished by prominent men. I don’t lecture any more, but I promised to introduce one of his lecturers for him. I chose Gen. Horace th Porter, late Ambassador to France, because I have known him 30 years. He is to talk on the 18 of this month unless he is obliged to go to Washington on Hague Tribunal business; in which th case he will do his talk a week later, on the 25 .
Would you like to hear him? A few ladies are admitted—very few. They stick them around, here & there in boxes — none on the floor, which is reserved for the young fellows. My secretary (whom you saw with me) is invited, & is going. Could you come, with your father or your mother, or both?
If you come I shall want to send you a written order on those people to see to it that you are not left outside or there will be trouble. And won’t you be a good child & come & speak to me?
I kiss your hand, dear.
Your oldest friend [MTAq 10].
Gertrude Natkin replied to Sam, delighted at his invitation for herself and her mother, which she was “more than delighted to accept.” When she read his letter of this date she wrote, “I could have kissed you; but perhaps that will hold good for another time” [MTAq 11]. Note: Cooley points out that Natkin didn’t become an angelfish but that his “correspondence with her points the way to the Aquarium and the dozen young ladies who were to become angelfish” [2]. insert angelfish pin
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Mr. Clemens was in one of his most interesting moods. He had no dictating to do and we went over a big waiting pile of mail & he talked about the dictated ms. and he red me scraps out of a new book. He said that Andrew D. White’s autobiography is too expensive, which it is at $7.50, but good to have of course, and then he swung off onto the subject of “man” the helplessness of him and his entire lack of “free will”. I didn’t’ know how strong a fatalist he is until this morning. Every deed is leading right on toward the next. “We’re nothing but a rag bag of disappeared ancestors.” He swung up and down the room in his brown robe, smoking one cigar after another. Such a glorious creature he is! When I’m tired or nervous and worried and have to go to his room with a budget, it doesn’t take long for his influence to quiet me. It is his greatness, his genius, his magnetism, his strong humanness, and his great sweet soul [MTP TS 23-24; also Gribben 760 in part]. Note: Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918).
Helen J. Sanborn wrote from Winter Hill, Mass. to inform Sam that the young Spanish girl Carolina Marcial whom he wished to introduce to Jean would be in NYC from Apr. 2 to 13, and would speak on the evening of Apr. 2 at the Hotel Savoy before the Presbyterian Union [MTP].
The New York Times, p. BR65 announced a new volume from Harper & Brothers:
“Mark Twain, Humorous Editor.”
“Men and Things” is the title of the first volume of a series—constituting a sort of encyclopaedia of humor—which the Harpers are publishing, with Mark Twain as titular compiler. Much of Mr. Clemens’s own work is included, and the series is a development of a single volume published as long ago as 1888. “Men and Things” is to be published some time after the middle of the month.
Dear M . Mahoney: / If you go on trying to make better Americans of the people whom you meet you cannot be better employed. You will be doing your best, you will be doing your full share, & nothing more can be required of any man. / May you prosper— … [MTP]. Note: Mahoney not further identified.
Sam also wrote to Gertrude Natkin, 138 W. 98 in N.Y.C.
Now then, dear, I will recal myself to your remembrance—then I will proceed. Do you remember coming out of Carnegie Hall one day & exchanging views concerning the weather with a white-headed patriarch with a limp & a glass eye? Very well, I am that patriarch. And so, to business. A gentleman has just been here who represents the West Side Y. M. C. A., & he says that every Sunday afternoon at 3.30 p.m he fills the Majestic Theatre, 59 & Broadway, with his young fellows & they listen to lectures furnished by prominent men. I don’t lecture any more, but I promised to introduce one of his lecturers for him. I chose Gen. Horace th Porter, late Ambassador to France, because I have known him 30 years. He is to talk on the 18 of this month unless he is obliged to go to Washington on Hague Tribunal business; in which th case he will do his talk a week later, on the 25 .
Would you like to hear him? A few ladies are admitted—very few. They stick them around, here & there in boxes — none on the floor, which is reserved for the young fellows. My secretary (whom you saw with me) is invited, & is going. Could you come, with your father or your mother, or both?
If you come I shall want to send you a written order on those people to see to it that you are not left outside or there will be trouble. And won’t you be a good child & come & speak to me?
I kiss your hand, dear.
Your oldest friend [MTAq 10].
Gertrude Natkin replied to Sam, delighted at his invitation for herself and her mother, which she was “more than delighted to accept.” When she read his letter of this date she wrote, “I could have kissed you; but perhaps that will hold good for another time” [MTAq 11]. Note: Cooley points out that Natkin didn’t become an angelfish but that his “correspondence with her points the way to the Aquarium and the dozen young ladies who were to become angelfish” [2]. insert angelfish pin
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Today Mr. Clemens was in one of his most interesting moods. He had no dictating to do and we went over a big waiting pile of mail & he talked about the dictated ms. and he red me scraps out of a new book. He said that Andrew D. White’s autobiography is too expensive, which it is at $7.50, but good to have of course, and then he swung off onto the subject of “man” the helplessness of him and his entire lack of “free will”. I didn’t’ know how strong a fatalist he is until this morning. Every deed is leading right on toward the next. “We’re nothing but a rag bag of disappeared ancestors.” He swung up and down the room in his brown robe, smoking one cigar after another. Such a glorious creature he is! When I’m tired or nervous and worried and have to go to his room with a budget, it doesn’t take long for his influence to quiet me. It is his greatness, his genius, his magnetism, his strong humanness, and his great sweet soul [MTP TS 23-24; also Gribben 760 in part]. Note: Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918).
Helen J. Sanborn wrote from Winter Hill, Mass. to inform Sam that the young Spanish girl Carolina Marcial whom he wished to introduce to Jean would be in NYC from Apr. 2 to 13, and would speak on the evening of Apr. 2 at the Hotel Savoy before the Presbyterian Union [MTP].
The New York Times, p. BR65 announced a new volume from Harper & Brothers:
“Mark Twain, Humorous Editor.”
“Men and Things” is the title of the first volume of a series—constituting a sort of encyclopaedia of humor—which the Harpers are publishing, with Mark Twain as titular compiler. Much of Mr. Clemens’s own work is included, and the series is a development of a single volume published as long ago as 1888. “Men and Things” is to be published some time after the middle of the month.
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