November 5 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).

The billiard table is better than the doctors. It is driving out the heartburn in a most promising way. I have a billiardist on the premises, & I walk not less than ten miles every day with the cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole of the exercise, nor the most health-giving part of it, I think. Through the multitude of the positions & attitudes it brings into play every muscle in the body & exercises them all.

The games begin right after luncheon, daily & continue until midnight, with 2 hours intermission for dinner & music. And so it is 9 hours’ exercise per day, & 10 or 12 for Sunday. Yesterday & last night it was 12—& I slept until 8 this morning without waking. The billiard table, as a Sabbath-breaker can beat any coal-breaker in Pennsylvania, & give it 30 in the game. If Mr. Rogers will take to daily billiards he can do without the doctors & the massageur, I think.

I was meditating a descent upon the Coes yesterday afternoon, but learned by telephone that they were not at home. However, the weather was not auspicious for gout, & I am threatened with that, these days. The billiards will knock it out.

We are really going to build a house on my farm, an hour & a half from New York. It is decided. It is to be built by contract & is to come within $25,000. I have been up to see Jean, & it is a pathetic exile & captivity; I must have a country home for her.

With love & many thanks,  / SLC /

 Clara is in the sanitarium—till January 28, when her western-concert tour will begin. She is getting to be a mighty competent singer. You must know Clara better; she is one of the very finest & completest & most satisfactory characters I have ever met. Others knew it before, but I have always been busy with other matters. I shan’t forget the 29 —sure [MTHHR 619-20].

The New York Times, p.4, dealt with Sam’s as yet unpublished Christian Science, and included his Apr. 17, 1903 letter to Livingston Wright about who the true author of Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health. Wright’s 1901 MS was published on Nov. 4, 1906 and claimed that Rev. J. Henry Wiggin was the true author of Eddy’s book. Sam had long disputed Eddy’s authorship. In the meantime, Harpers was sitting on Christian Science, but would publish it in 1907.

Yesterday at his home, 21 Fifth Avenue, Mr. Clemens said that he did not know why his book, which he said is still in the hands of the publishers, had never reached the public. He said that the nature of the work was indicated in his letter [Apr. 17, 1903] to Mr. Wright. Beyond this, he added, under the circumstances he could not talk at present.

George B. Harvey wrote a short note to Clemens, agreeing to dine with him Friday at 7:30 p.m. [MTP].

Frank Phalen wrote on Unitarian Society notepaper, Fairhaven, Mass. to Sam. (Phalen was a minister of that church.) He referred to Sam’s connection with Mr. Wright, literary executor of Rev. J. Henry Wiggin, who Sam had discovered edited Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health. Phalen agreed with Clemens that Eddy was a sham. He wished to meet Sam when he next came to Fairhaven [MTP].