January 26 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.  

It is good news, Jean dear, that you are having healthful outdoor times, & especially good news that Dr. Hunt perceives that your condition is improved. It is very good news. Miss Lyon is sure you will like the carriage. From the description of it I am of the same opinion. George & the carriage & the horse will doubtless soon be on their way to you.

I am glad you enjoy your carving-work. Your pigs were cunningly & artistically done, & mighty attractive. If I could do such things I should greatly enjoy it.

John Howells has planned a house which is going to be very satisfactory, I think—in all ways, cost included.

Dooley came & played billiards yesterday & I won a dollar, & Clara tried to make me give it back to him. She does everything she can to make it difficult for me to support the family [MTP]. Note: he also told of skinning his shin and also falling backward as a chair gave way; not being able to do it again without breaking his neck. Dr. Edward Livington Hunt.

Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell. Dear Joe: / All the periodicals have refused this poem—ever since election day. Get Charley Clark to put it in the Courant. ….[Enclosed:]

The Battle of Ivoy

Man For His Own Hand.

Being a Campaign Anthem.

Air—Jerusalem the Golden.

=== === ———

Ho, burghers of Dutch Albany,

Ho, buggers of New York,

Ho, sons of bitches from the slums

And painted whores from Cork,*

Ho, gallows-birds from Hell’s Delight

And convicts prison-nursed,

O, gather, gather to the polls

And ’lect the bloody Hurst!

===

* A poetically-licensed divergence from fact. They don’t come from there [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Benjamin dinner. A.B. back & the King glad.

This afternoon Mr. Clemens went up to see “Fletcher” the palmist. At 4 o’clock he came home full of the amusement of it. Fletcher told him that he was to live close onto a century. That he had 2 investments connected with the ground—one of which was to be of great importance in about 2 years time, and that he’d be advised to sell out, but that he mustn’t do it. The King said “There’s the Utah [Consolidated stock] & the Farm [Redding house]”. We sat on the red sofa in the billiard room while he told me about his visit there & then he read a little of Omar Khyayyam aloud. It’s a new translation just sent to the King & translates 8 of the quatrains. Of course it doesn’t tally with FitzGerald’s exactly, which made the King remark that “Omar had changed his principles” [TS 22-23]. Note: see Feb. 2 to Eben Francis Logan, who sent the book. Gribben p. 517 was working with an older TS here, so his page numbers are different.

In the evening Sam attended a banquet in honor of Senator from Montana, William Andrews Clark (1839-1925). Clark made a fortune in Montana in mining, banking and railroads, and owned a magnificent house on Fifth Ave., containing a wealth of art treasures. The NY Times, Jan. 27, p. 13:

Dinner to Senator Clark.

A dinner was given in honor of Senator W. A. Clark by the Art Committee of the Union League at the clubhouse last night [Jan. 26] as a mark of appreciation for the loan exhibition of the Senator’s pictures which recently closed there. Among the other guests were Mark Twain, Frank R. Lawrence, President of the Lotos Club; George R. Sheldon, Robert C. Ogden, and Albert H. Wiggin.

There were thirty canvases in Senator Clark’s exhibit, representing $1,000,000 in value. The members of the Art Committee who gave the dinner were Col. H. B. Wilson, Herbert S. Carpenter, Paulding Farnham, Thomas E. Kirby, Col. Harrison K. Bird, and A. A. Anderson. Note: Fatout lists this as a speaking engagement for Twain (p.676), but from Sam’s narration of the day and event in MTE (p.70-77), he clearly did not:

I went to the dinner, which was served in a small private room of the club with the usual piano and fiddlers present to make conversation difficult and comfort impossible. I found that the Montana citizen was not merely a guest but that the dinner was given in his honor. While the feeding was going on two of my elbow neighbors supplied me with information concerning the reasons for this tribute of respect to Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark had lately lent to the Union League Club, which is the most powerful political club in America and perhaps the richest, a million dollars’ worth of European pictures for exhibition. It was quite plain that my informant regarded this as an act of almost superhuman generosity. One of my informants said, under his breath and with awe and admiration, that if you should put together all of Mr. Clark’s several generosities to the club, including this gaudy one, the cost to Mr. Clark first and last would doubtless amount to a hundred thousand dollars. I saw that I was expected to exclaim, applaud, and adore, but I was not tempted to do it, because I had been informed five minutes earlier that Clark’s income, as stated under the worshipping informant’s breath, was thirty million dollars a year [MTE 72-3].

Susan L. Warner (Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner) wrote to Sam upon learning he was to be a pallbearer for Mrs. Hooker. Would he stay with Mary Barton and herself over night? [MTP].

Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “I thank you ever so much but am not able to come.”