June 7 Friday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote a dedication to Steve Gillis: “To / Steve Gillis / with the unabated love / of his oldest friend— / Mark Twain / New York, June 7, 1907” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today I’m ill, ill all day, the King went to lunch with David Munro and one or two or three or 4 others. Maj. Leigh and ABP. Before he left he came and sat with me, and when he came back and I was showing the packing of the King’s trunk to Ashcroft he brought me a great pink rose that had been a part of the dinner decoration and AB brought me another. He had pounded out his feelings about Roosevelt and was great, so the applause was heavy. I got up in time for dinner, the King’s last dinner before his sailing, and sat with him in his room as he smoked his long calabash pipe. Just sat there and pretended to talk, there were a few things to make an excuse over. It is always so peaceful in the King’s room, there is something so soothing in his smoking [MTP TS 65-66].
Educational Theatre For Children sent a telegram wishing Sam a pleasant voyage & safe return [MTP].
Stephen Leacock wrote from Orilla, Canada: “Dear Mr. Clemens: The Monthly hasn’t come yet; but I look forward to getting it…” [Univ. of Chicago Regenstein Library; copy by Tenney]. Note: evidently Clemens had written to Leacock; not extant.
J.W.T. Ley for Dickens Fellowship, London wrote to invite Sam to their Gallery, from July 19 to Aug. 28 [MTP].
Cornelius Vanderbilt for Robert Fulton Monument wrote to Sam acknowledging his “very interesting letter of May 20th regarding the passage of the Bill by the State Legislature of NewYork, granting our Association the two blocks of land under water on the Hudson River front, for the erection of the Water Gate and Memorial to Robert Fulton.” He understood Sam had volunteered to ask Carnegie, while in London, for a liberal subscription [MTP].
Dorothy Butes began a letter to Sam from Alton, N.H. that she finished on June 8. She was having “a jolly time” camping in “a rustic cottage overlooking the lake” with 11 other girls. “I hope you will be glad to come back to ‘Old New York,’ after all your triumphs in London…”
In his A.D. Sam recalled that his children greatly enjoyed “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” [Gribben 326]. [MTP].
Chapters from “My Autobiography—XIX” ran in the N.A.R. p.241-51.