January 10 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
We had such a busy morning, the King & I, for there are always so many things to be talked over & telephoned about. Just now it is Helen Keller who is coming to town next week, & Miss Winifred Holt had bombarded the King with invitations to meet her & to again become involved in the Blind Association as a year ago. But Miss Holt overdid it all a year ago & now the King swears hard at the mention of her name. Now we are telephoning Mrs. Lawrence [sic Laurence] Hutton to make a quiet engagement to meet Helen Keller here, perhaps, & probably with Mr. & Mrs. Mason.
This afternoon we went out to Katonah to see Jean who was in a torrent of impossible moods & distressed her father until he was ready to weep. All the way out in the train he had talked & he bought a world almanac & read railroad accidents in the U.S. for the past nine years. He had been dictating on that subject this morning & had made a note on his note book for me to get him that almanac, when the same day one walked into his hand. The train was so hot, so fearfully hot that the King tore off his overcoat saying, “We’ve arrived in Hell ahead of time” [MTP TS 8]. Note: Sam and Isabel Lyon’s quick trip to Katonah to visit daughter Jean was followed by Sam’s letter to Jean. the next day (Jan. 11) and also on Jan. 14.
Hill writes of this visit and of Jean’s “increasingly temperamental” nature:
She wanted her horse, Scott, which was promptly shipped to her, and then her father bought her a carriage to use. She recorded a romantic interest in one of her physicians at her sanitarium, a Dr. Hibbard, in her diary:
I don’t in the least hope to win him, fond as I am growing of him, but I can’t help wishing that if he is engaged I didn’t have to be thrown with him so incessantly as I am….That desperate hunger for love does not leave me and doesn’t seem to intend [to]. Doubtless for that very reason no one will ever care for me and I shall have to drag my useless, empty life out by itself. Oh! is there no hope whatsoever for me? What can I do! I feel as tho’ I must find some means to prove attractive to a person that I can also learn to love [167]. Note: see Hill for more on Jean’s condition during this period. See also Jan. 17 to Jean, which reveals the carriage wasn’t purchased until after Jan. 17.
John J. Flinn for the Chicago Press Club sent a telegram to Sam. “CHICAGO PRESS CLUB BANQUET FRIDAY EVENING JANUARY 11 CELEBRATION OF 27 TH ANNIVERSARY WOULD BE GLAD TO HAVE WORD OF CHEER FROM YOU KINDLY ANSWER FREE” [MTP]. Note: On this day or the next Sam answered Flinn’s telegram: “What the Hell can we say / Eat, drink, & be merry for tomorrow you may be out of your job. / Mark Twain” [MTP].
Andrew Carnegie wrote a 3×5 invitation card to dine and meet the Rev. Robert Collyer, on Fri. Jan. 10 at 7:30 [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on side: “The dinner I let go. / Clemens forget”
James C. Fernald wrote from Wash. D.C. to ask Sam, “…in which of your works you have illustrated the reverse of Whitefield’s progressive mastery of Franklin’s benevolent impulses, when the orator’s plea drew from the calm philosopher all his money, contrary to his fixed intention” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote: “infernald nuisance”
R.H. Kitchner wrote from Boston to ask Sam where he might find “The Golden Arm” in Sam’s works [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “How to tell a story. / Vol 22 / Hillcrest”