February 21 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.

Jean dear, Ashcroft’s people have added another spiral-pin device: it is to secure jewels in the hair without having to wire them in, as at present. The next time Anna comes down, I want her to remember to ask us for one of these & carry it to you.

I have bought 2 oil paintings for the Redding house for $250—charming pictures, by an elderly artist who has had no art-instruction, but lends the use of his hands to a dead artist who is residing in the spirit world. This gentle & simple-hearted old proxy has been a silversmith all his life until lately, but you can see by his pictures that he is a born poet—or maybe it’s the dead artist (Swayne Gifford) that is the poet.

Clara is away—warbling around the country. There is a small portrait of her in Harper’s Weekly.

I’m to go out to dinner this evening—in white clothes, by request. To-morrow I go to a lady’s- tea at Prof. Lord’s of Columbia—in white clothes, by request of Mrs. Lord.

Pamela Smith lunched here yesterday, & sat on the floor & told a lot of delicious Jamaican folk-lore tales in a lovely negro dialect. She is in several ways a genius, of high order.

This is only a note to say I love you dearly & am sending hugs & kisses [MTP].

Note: Anna Sterritt, Jean’s nurse. Robert Swain Gifford (1840-1905), landscape painter who focused on New England landscapes. The elder artist who claimed to channel Gifford is not known. Herbert Gardiner Lord (1849-1930), Presbyterian minister (1878-1895); professor of philosophy at Columbia (1900-1922). Undergraduates more than once voted Lord their favorite professor. Mrs. Mally Graham Coatsworth Lord (1861-1934). The Lords had a summer house in York Harbor, Maine [NY Times, Mar. 13, 1930, p. 21; June 25, 1934, p. 15]. Pamela “Pixie” Smith.

Sam also wrote per Isabel Lyon to George B. Harvey: “There will be a quorum of the Human Race there on the 1 —so it would be made a Human Race occasion by usurpation” [MTP]. Note: Sam’s “God Damned Human Race Club” which never managed to meet.

Sam also wrote to John Y.W. MacAlister, enclosing some material taken from his Autobiographical dictation “pile” narrating his first visit to England. MacAlister was an editor besides being Sam’s partner in the Plasmon efforts.

This has been delayed in many ways; but I will have Miss Lyon hurry it to the mail at once.

Use it—or part of it—or none of it—just as you please. There has been no time at my disposal in which to write something special, so I have taken this out of my vast pile of autobiographical MS. It will appear after my death, along with the rest of my Memoires. It lacks smoothness in spots, but I seldom apply an after-polish, for dictated things are talk, & talk is all the better & all the more natural when it stumbles a little here & there [MTP]. Note: the piece Sam sent included his 1872 train trip in England where he observed a man reading IA who did not smile; then his first evening at the Savage Club and misplacing some five-pound notes which the servant later found in his tail-coat pocket.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: The King dined at the Robt. Colliers’ & met there Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney & Mrs. Astor & an artist & his wife. He can’t remember the artist’s name. The King never can remember names. Mrs. Collier asked him to wear his white clothes, & the King believing it would be a tiny dinner did so, & felt uncomfortable for a while—but he got over it.

Tonight AB & I spent alone with Chopin funeral march & the Cavaleria Rusticana & then a great deal of wonderful talk. How well I know him now. The King gave me his Christian Science book this morning with a maxim in it—Oh, the King! [MTP TS 30-31].

Emil Leopold Boas (1854-1912), head of the Hamburg-American Line wrote to Sam, advertising trips south with various ships [MTP].

Mrs. Louie P. Capper wrote from Aberdeen, New Brunswick to ask Sam where she might find another copy of the “Mark Twain’s Birthday Book.” She enclosed a stamped envelope [MTP]. Note: “Answd. Mch. 11”; Lyon replied for Sam on Capper’s letter: “Has seen the book in England once—but does not know the publisher. Should imagine it might be Chatto & Windus as much of the matter is copyr”. Sam also wrote he’d seen the book once in England so referred her to Chatto & Windus.

John B. Downing (Major “Alligator” Jack Downing) wrote from Daytona, Fla. to Sam.

Dear Sir:—On coming to our winter home here from Middleport Ohio, we remained in St. Louis a few days to see old friends and the many changes. I soon learned that the only star gazers left to make a long crossing in the fog was  yourself, Horace Bixby and the writer. This day am in receipt of the Daily Globe Democrat containing an obituary of my old friend Capt John N Bofinger the first man for whom I turned a wheel from St Louis to New Orleans, and I think he was Capt of the Edward J Gay with Bart Bowen and Squire Bill pilots when you, Ben Thornburg, Thad Sederburg, Beck Jolly and myself went to Cairo to look for changes in the river. Now can you advise me the year we made that trip. Am writing some historical events for our Palmetto Club and require data. Again, should you at any time decide to leave New York st during the cold weather and visit the most beautiful place in Florida, come here any time before the 1 of April—we leave May 1 —and advise me by letter or wire, and while we will not meet you with a Band Waggon at the Depot will give you a warm reception. The Palmetto Literary Club has a nice house built the past year and I think will seat 500, and I have no doubt of the happiness and profit you would receive from your many friends. Hoping to hear from st you soon, subscribe myself, Yours very abundantly…[MTP].

William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.

I am at least out of bed, and so far on a par with that branch of the human race which is being tried for matricide, and other venial offences. But you will have to welcome that British Ambassador without me. Tell him we are not so bad as we paint ourselves—couldn’t be.

      It was good of you to come and see me, you fine old paranoic. I don’t know how you’ve escaped arrest up to this time. It shows you were always right about the inefficiency of of our detective system. Good bye, you whited sepulcher / Yours affectionately …[MTHL 2: 822-3].