July 23 Tuesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Butes at the Hotel Webster.
Your letter has arrived to night. Tried to telephone you but you are out. To-day mailed letter to you in New Hampshire. I have engagement here tomorrow or would go and see you. Please telephone me here first thing in the morning. Call 113 Tuxedo. I am unspeakably sorry you are going without seeing you. If I had known you were in town I would have called last night [MTAq 46].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “This morning at 10:45 we started for Tuxedo” [MTP 86].
Frederick A. Duneka wrote to ask Sam if he’d agree to an interview [MTP]. On or after July 23 Isabel V. Lyon wrote on Duneka’s letter how to answer: “not a newspaper in N.Y. that hasn’t approached him on this subject. In every case has said no. Wants Duneka to say that it is violating the contract & to say no always—for he’ll be damned if he’ll will [sic] be interviewed again” [MTP]. Note: enclosed in Duneka’s letter is a letter from Paul West of the NY World, July 23 to Duneka, asking if Roy McCardell, a reporter, could call “sometime this week” to “have Mark Twain tell … a little about his trip to Europe.” This letter is catalogued as to Clemens, but is to Duneka.
American Surety wrote from NYC enclosing a surety on bonds printed questionnaire for Sam P. Davis. The enclosed left blank; stamped env. Not used [MTP]. Note: Sam didn’t care much for Davis.
George Grantham Bain wrote from NYC to ask Sam if their photographer could make “a few intimate pictures” as they’d requested before he left for England. The photog had called at Sam’s NYC home and left copies of some pictures he made the day before that were in today’s World and Journal [MTP]. Note: IVL wrote on the letter: “Answd July 24”
William H. Charnley wrote from Chicago to Sam—a fan letter hoping for a reply [MTP]. Note: IVL wrote on the letter: “Answd July 30, 07”
Charles M. Fairbanks wrote from Brooklyn to Sam. Charles was son Mary Mason Fairbanks, and mused over how proud she would be of Sam’s “conquest to England” [MTP].
G.W. Franks wrote from Newark, NJ, recalling steamboats on the Mississippi [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Answd. July 30, 07”
Winifred Holt for Association for the Blind wrote from NYC to Sam, suggesting he might raise funds for them by talking to a Tuxedo audience [MTP].
Francis B. Keene wrote from Geneva, Switzerland to Sam. Keene had been US Consul in Florence during the Clemens family’s stay there.
My dear Mr Clemens: / Hail, Oxford Don, Beloved of the Muses Nine.
If you have recovered from the feasts of food and fondness with which you were regaled, if you have digested the roast beef of Old England that comes from Chicago, listen to the prayer that comes to me from Mr Charles Dean, correspondent of the Associated Press…Milwaukee, Wisconsin…
The Milwaukee Press Club is hugging to its heart a hope that it may get you to consent to lecture under its auspices some time during the late autumn or early winter…An autograph letter from you would, even if it brought desolation by declination, find a place behind glass, as the tender memory of a blasted hope.
Many a month has slipped away since I used to see you often in the Consulate at Florence. I have never ceased to be sorry that the dear old city by the Arno is a place to which your memory can only go back as the scene of your greatest grief.
I hear from Gregory Smith now and then. He visited us last year, and did me the favor of loaning me his colored butler for nine months. Thomas often grinned over the memory of some of your sallies at Bel Riposo. …
I still keep the hat that you inadvertently honored by wearing one day from the apartment of the Rev. and Mrs Riggs. But my head has been too large for it ever since. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that “a man’s mind is often stretched by an idea, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.” …
It has been a pleasure to read about how John Bull loaded you with honors and evidence of affection.
May you live long to enjoy a green old age and deserved honors …[MTP].
E.W. Meddaugh wrote from Chicago to Sam.
Dear Sir: / Several years ago I sent you the money to buy a hymn book with, which I believe you turned over to the Society for the Purchasing of Questionable luxuries for our Literary Poor. But as far as I can see our Literary Poor are just as poor as they ever were (with the possible exception of yourself), and therefore I must ask what became of the money…You deserve to live a thousand years without paying rent, from the fact that you have made so many people happy [MTP].
C.A. Wells wrote from Quincy, Ill. to invite Sam to a luncheon in Hannibal on Aug. 12 [MTP].