April 17 Wednesday – Sam’s A.D. of one year later noted the anniversary: “a fortunate day, a golden day, and my heart has never been empty of grandchildren since.” Cooley writes:
The specific reference is to his meeting Dorothy Butes, a fourteen-year-old English girl, whose mother asked if they might briefly visit Mark Twain during their travels in America. Clemens described Dorothy as “simple, sincere, frank and straightforward, as became her time in life” (MTAD, 17 April 1908). Although his correspondence with Dorothy was limited, he considered her, not Gertrude Natkin, his first angelfish [MTAq 33]. Note: editorial emphasis.
The New York Post-Graduate Medical School wrote to invite Sam to dinner at Delmonico’s Apr. 17 at 7 p.m. [MTP]. Note: On or after Apr. 17 Sam replied it wasn’t likely he could attend, but if he found he could at the last moment, he would, but “please don’t reserve a place for me” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Harper & Brothers. “Yes, I am willing, but I have the vague impression that the Tauchnitz Library have always paid a hundred pounds heretofore. Very truly yours….” [MTP].
R.D. Jones wrote from Radium, Greensville Co., Va. to Sam, enclosing a copy of a title page from a book with two engravings, one a picture of Captain Morgan. Jones wanted to know the value of the book [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Column in Daily Sun where all such thing are intelligently answered”
Jervis Langdon II wrote to thank Sam for his remittance of $1,000 on his subscription to the Hope-Jones Organ Co. Jervis wrote two glowing paragraphs of the company’s progress [MTP].
J.A. McM. (not further identified) wrote from West Lynn, Mass. to Sam.
Apropos of your very entertaining little book on ‘English as she is Taught’—the following true story fits in well—A teacher asked her class of boys to tell the difference between herself and a clock. A bright little urchin in the rear row raised his hand and said—‘You have a face and the clock has a face, and you have got hands and the clock has got hands, and—and (reflecting) the clock has got a pendoodleum and you ain’t” [MTP].
Note: Sam wrote on the letter: “Preserve this. Frame it. It is the second time in 40 years that a stranger has done me a courtesy & charged me nothing for it. Such a thing is usually accompanied by the man’s address, so that I can pay him a hundred dollars’ worth of thank-you for 2 cents’ worth of complimentary attention. SLC”
April 17 after – Mark G. McElhinney wrote an essay “The Broader View,” to Sam on two legal-sized pages, including this paragraph: “It has been stated by Mark Twain, the deepest philosopher America has produced, that ‘The altar-cloth of one age becomes the door-mat of the next’” [MTP].