May 6 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
I am sitting here at 2:30 in the morning. I couldn’t can’t sleep. Downstairs I hear Mr. Clemens cough. I have taken 2 heavy drugs, but they don’t effect—a terrible anxiety weighs—up Fifth Avenue, drays drag themselves. Horses, I suppose are in front of them. I feel a calamity. The Valley of the Shadow, Mr. Clemens calls this house. Trunks are around but the terror is heavy upon me. When Santa started for Gilders tonight I told her I’d go for whiskey—but thre was not whiskey to quiet me. Foolish for me to think it would [MTP TS 69]. Note: though most editorial strike outs are not used in Lyon’s entries, all of these are. The pattern of most strikeouts suggests that Lyon, at a later time, deleted those phrases and passages which were melodramatic, effusive in her regard for Clemens, or woe-is-me; such is the nature of the above. Many of the deletions and emendations suggest she may have been preparing the documents for eventual publication. Most of her diaries/journals/daily reminders are published in this volume for the first time.
The New York Times, p.1, “Mark Twain Out Again,” reported on the improving health of Twain who would leave for Dublin N.H. “within a few days.”
May 6 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a PS (afterthoughts to his May 4) to Charlotte Teller Johnson: P.S.
It is bronchitis that is keeping me here. There is only about ten cents’ worth of it, but even that much means bed, according to doctor-notions.
I have torn up the preceding sheet: it was mainly about Giddings’s article, &—like the article— not worth while. Giddings did his work well, but what he lacked was a subject; there was nothing before his house; he was establishing the facts of the multiplication table when nobody was doubting those facts; & at the same time he was overlooking the issue that was before the house, & the only one.
In Gorky’s case it is a very large one; in Smith’s case, or Jones’s it would have no importance. Gorky is a puzzle & a vexation to me. He came here in a distinctly diplomatic capacity—a function which demands (& necessitates) delicacy, tact, deference to people’s prejudices. He came on a great mission, a majestic mission, the succor of an abused & suffering vast nation. As to his diplomacy, it does not resemble Talleyrand’s, Gortschakoff’s, Metternich’s; it is new, it is original, it has not its like in history: he hits the public in the face with his hat & then holds it out for contributions. It is not ludicrous, it is pitiful. As to his patriotism,—his lofty task of lifting up & healing his bleeding nation,—it can’t stand the strain of a trifling temporary inconvenience. He has made a grave blunder & persistently refuses to rectify it.
A diplomat of full age ought surely to know this pair of simple things that a country’s laws are written upon paper, & that its customs are engraved upon brass. One may play with the one, but not with the other. It is less risky for a stranger to dance upon our Constitution in the public square than to affront one of our solidified customs. The one is merely eminently respectable, the other is sacred.
What I am afflicting you with these platitudes for? To get them (& the revolution) out of my system. It looks like using you as a convenience, but I don’t see any other way. Come, let’s cut the resolution! & concentrate on Mirabeaus & Autobiographies & other spirit-contenting industries. I hope you are getting along with the mentioned last act to your satisfaction, & that I may see a carbon copy when it is done.
Four went to Dublin last Monday, 6 are here, waiting for me. Also, the music [Orchestrelle] has gone to Dublin. This house is several shades too quiet, now. “Dublin, N.H.”—that is the whole address: it is only a village, you needn’t add anything. Dear my lady, Aùfwiedersehen [MTP].