September 4 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to William Webster Ellsworth.
Looks as if he is going to have that boy on his hands permanently & he thinks of course he must draw on the fund. But if he will go personally & talk to one person a day for 30 days he can get 30 men in a month to contribute an average of 15 dollars a year. & if he is willing to try another month, he will probably get as many more. Mr. Clemens has tried raising funds but has never found it successful. It will be necessary to talk to the men or women themselves & you can raise a pension of any amount you choose. & for any object. But people do not pay attention to letters. When you have captured 20 of those 15 dollar people you can add Mr. Clemens for 15 dollars [MTP].
William Webster Ellsworth wrote to solicit Sam to help the Pond boy (James B. Pond, Jr. “Bim”) see Sam’s reply above [MTP].
In the evening Dorothy Quick arrived for a week’s visit [Sept. 5 to Clara].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We have the plans nearly made to go down to Jamestown on the 22nd for the Robert Fulton Day. Mr. Clemens expects to go on Mr. Rogers’s yacht and Mother and I are going on one of the old Dominion boats” [MTP TS 100].
Ralph S. Tebbutt wrote from Sandusky, Ohio to solicit Sam to accept a painting [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “No Ans.”
In Sam’s A.D. for the day: “I have not read Nietzsche or Ibsen, nor any other philosopher….Nietzsche published his book, and was at once pronounced crazy by the world— by a world which included tens of thousands of bright, sane men who believed exactly as Nietzsche believed but concealed the fact and scoffed at Nietzsche. What a coward ever man is!” [Gribben 508].
Sam’s A.D. of this day titled “What is Man?”covered the Hartford Monday Evening Club’s objections to the philosophy behind this piece; it’s anonymous publication by DeVinne and the preface; the segment was selected for MTE [239-43].