March 15 Friday – Sam sat for A.F. Bradley, a New York photographer. Isabel Lyon’s journal recorded the event:
I went up to the Bradly [sic] studio with the King at eleven this morning, & Mr. Bradly must have made 25 exposures of the King. He was in his white suit & very very beautiful. Now at 1:30 I slipped down to his room to see him lying asleep with his glasses on & his hands clasped over his breast and over a volume of “Plutarch’s Lives”. His body is so sweet, so gentle in these days, but from the flash of his eye you can see the strong active crusader-like life he is living in his mind [MTP TS 40].
North American Review published a review of Christian Science by Charles Johnston, p. 641- 5. Tenney: “Argues that Mary Baker Eddy is indeed a psychic, though lacking the character to fully cope with what has been revealed to her. She has her virtues (amply proclaimed by her disciples and by herself), but also her failings, and ‘it is natural and right that Mark Twain should lay more stress on the sordid despotism, the vanity, the pretence, which he makes exceedingly plain in his earnest and disinterested study. He is absolutely right in underlining the passion for money, backed up by claims of immediate divine guidance….’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 192]. Also, in the same issue, Charles Klein, p. 636-41, offers a point-by-point defense of Eddy and Christian Science [ibid.].
Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote from NYC to acknowledge blank check from Sam to be used, “if at all, in the purchase of Utah Consolidated shares” [MTP].
Arthur Judson Bleazby wrote from Lynn, Mass. to Sam. “In dealing with the subject of Christian Science, which you have not understood, but misjudged, error alias the devil has compelled you many ‘miles’ and you have misinterpreted the meaning of Matthew, 5 Chapter, and 41 verse. The last word is an adjective not a proper noun and name” [MTP]. Note: Matt. 5:41: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”
William Augustus Croffut, a Redding Conn. native, wrote to Sam, noting from newspapers that Sam was going to “boom” Redding, by building there—“the last town in the world” he would have expected Sam to hide in. He looked forward to seeing Sam there in the summer [MTP].
E.L. Hale wrote to Sam about p. 461 in the NAR, where Sam claimed to be able to crack hickory nuts & walnuts with the kernels delivered whole. What was the secret? [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote: “Place edge up, not the flat side, so that the nut splits open into 2 halves & delivers those kernels whole” before [MTP].
Jean Jewel Hotchkiss wrote from NYC to Sam, having had no answer to his letter two weeks
Chapters from “My Autobiography—XIV” ran in the N.A.R. p.561-71.