March 23 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to Kate W. Barrett (incoming not extant):
If I dared I would say yes, but I must not venture it. I shall be fortunate if I do not break down under the work which I am still booked to do between now & the end of the season, & it would not be safe for me to add anything to it. The invitations come every day, but I have to say no all the time; though often, as in the present case, my sympathies are strongly stirred & it costs me a pang to do it. It is a deep pleasure to me to know that you have thought of me in connection with your noble work. [in bottom left corner, note by Isabel V. Lyon:]
“answering M . Kate W. Barrett who asked M . Clemens to attend Annual Conference of Florence Critterton assn. & say something in the vein inspiring King Leopold’s Soliloquy, for the cause of the care of girls gone astray” [MTP].
Clemens’ A.D. for the day: Some curious letter superscriptions which have come to Clemens —Our inefficient postal system under Postmaster-General David McKendree Key— Reminiscences of Harriet Beecher Stowe—Story of Reverend Charles Stowe’s little boy, Charles Edward Stowe [AMT 1: 436-439].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Mr. Clemens went down for luncheon today & after a frantic, frantic morning, C.C. & I went around to look at the house at University Place & Washington Sq. Then when I came back we had music.
Mr. Dearborn has had to change the date again for the Fulton lecture. It has been shifted out of Holy Week & I’m glad. When I told Mr. Clemens about it, he said “yes, it is a good thing to change the date, for to have it in Holy Week would be like playing a Comedy in Heaven—” & when I suggested that they surely wouldn’t have comedies in Heaven, he said “No, there won’t be any humorists there, Heaven must be a hell of a place.”
C.C. & I went over to the Gilders’ this evening. There were lots of people there, among them Mr. & Mrs. Albert Vorse whom I met there a week ago & we have planned to go see some Marionettes on Monday evening [MTP TS 56]. Note: Albert Vorse (1866-1910) and Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966). Albert was a journalist who encouraged his wife to write; Mary published her first of 18 books, The Breaking-In of a Yachtman’s Wife in 1908 and later became active in the suffrage movement. Not in Gribben.
March 23 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Mar. 21, William A. Frisbie’s invitation to come to Minneapolis. “Travelling days are over—don’t make any journeys now except compulsory ones—” [MTP].