August 5 Sunday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam added a few lines to his Aug. 4 to Mary B. Rogers:
Sunday. / P.S.
No, gentle pal, return it to me, in the enclosed envelop. I will go over it again (aloud, this time, which is the only sure test), before I ship it to Harvey. (Don’t let any outsider see it, it is dangersome.) / SLC [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell.
Dear Joe: / Certainly archæology comes to the very front, now! this triumph places it at the head of the sciences. You have heard of it?—how Professor Häbner has established beyond shadow of doubt that the Virgin was 47 years old?
I think it is wonderful, perfectly wonderful. He did not need to also prove that she was black, for all Nazarenes were colored people, & are to this day.
Think of it. Black & 47. Do you believe there’s any temptation He could resist? Do you? Are you going to preach about it? When? Yours ever [MTP]. Note: refers to Jesus Christ and his mother Mary; trouble is, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and only lived in Nazareth after Joseph and Mary returned from Egypt after Herod’s death. “He was called a Nazarene” but was not one by birth. See Matthew chapter 2. The good archeology professor has not been identified.
See also Rogers of Aug. 8.
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers, enclosing the above note to Twichell. “Upon second thought it will be better for this to come from you. In theological matters Twichell attaches much more value to your commendations than he does to mine. Just copy it in your own hand & sign it & send it to him. It will be all right. Yours ever” [MTP; not in MTHHR].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens, Jean & I lunched with Mrs. Wm. Cabot today to meet Sir John & Lady Carter. I liked them ever so much. Lady Carter is the 2nd wife—a niece of Mrs. Cabot’s. It transpired that Mr. Clemens & Sir John had met several years ago in Nassau when Mr. Clemens was yachting down there with Mr. Rogers & Mr. Tom Reid. At luncheon—such a pretty luncheon for there was a table of young creatures—Mr. Clemens told how many years ago when he & Mrs. Clemens were in England they went with Moncure D. Conway out to Stratford-on-Avon, but the destination was an unknown one to Mrs. Clemens. For many years she had wanted to go to Shakespeare’s grave & this was to be a surprise to he. At the station when the big station sign was very visible, these 2 men thrust themselves between Mrs. Clemens & the windows so she couldn’t read that sign; & they hustled her away from a bus which had “The Shakespeare Arms” in glaring letters along its side; & only when she stood reading the epitaph in the church, did she know where she was.
After luncheon we sat out on the broad porch with the beautiful view of the hills beyond the pines & Gerald Thayer brought around the splendid, radiant, squawking makaw that he brought up from Trinidad for Eleanor Cabot’s father to buy for her [MTP TS 102-103]. Note: in his NB of Mar. 22, 1902 in Nassau, Sam wrote that he’d known Sir Gilbert Thomas Carter before. Sir John may have been a relative. In his NB of June 21, 1899 he was in London and wrote of John Ridgely Carter “of our embassy.”