September 7 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Dinner at the Deacons, and it was very lovely. I sat between Mr. Deacon and Mr. Condert, the latter is very interesting, and we bored each other to a nicety. But Mr. Deacon always has some good prosy interesting thing to talk about. He was telling me about Vernon Lee, and her extreme plainness and her delightfulness; and about her half brother Mr. Hamilton. He met them in Florence years ago, at a time when Hamilton was a great invalid; so great an invalid that the doctors could do no more for him. He was in his room with his nurse and his private secretary waiting for death; knowing and saying that it was in the room; when with great suddenness he sat up in his bed, and said “I am well. I am perfectly well!” and he was. When I asked Mr. Deacon to explain the wonder of it, he said that there had been a lesion of the brain, and that when it cleared, the blood forced its way to the diseased part, so a healthy condition ensued immediately [MTP TS 101].

William Lamb wrote from Norfolk, Va. to invite Sam to the 9 Triennial Council of Phi Beta Kappa in Old Williamsburg next Thursday, Sept. 12th [MTP].

In Sam’s A.D. “Three days ago the [NY] World newspaper convicted Mr. Roosevelt beyond redemption of having bought his election to the Presidency with money” [Gribben 507].  

Of the selections from Twain’s A.D.’s, DeVoto selected about half of the materials not chosen before by Paine to be included in Mark Twain in Eruption (1940); among DeVoto’s choices, was “The President as Advertiser,” dictated this day, comprised of commentary on news article allegations of bribery in T.R.’s election and criticism of his self-serving showmanship [14-19].