January 21 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
Francesca dear
I wish you were here
And had 2 weeks to spare. Then I would pack you & Miss Lyon aboard ship & sail for Bermuda Saturday. Now you see what you are robbing her of—& she needs that trip very much. I shall take nobody but Ashcroft—yet he hasn’t any use for a voyage.
You are going to spend those ten Easter days here, aren’t you, dear? We’ll come to Catonville & fetch you.
Two hours ago I didn’t know I was going to Bermuda—& I can’t swear to it now. But Ashcroft has secured the staterooms, & I fully expect to be out of bed by Saturday.
Good-bye, dear. With love. … [MTP; MTAq 99].
Sam also wrote to Dorothy Quick.
Tuesday evening
Dorothy dear, tell your mother that the wisest way for her to spend money on your health will be to take you to Bermuda for a week or a fortnight; & you must tell her that the best TIME is next Saturday. (That is because I am going, then, & so is Ashcroft.) It’s the big ship (the “Bermudian”). She makes the passage across in 45 hours.
In Bermuda a sick person gets well in 3 days, & strong in a week. I expect to be gone from New York till Feb. 11, but I may be back earlier. I tried the trip twice last year, & I know—the change made me well in 3 days.
The doctors say I shall be well enough by Saturday to sail—so Mr. Ashcroft has secured the staterooms.
I hope you are well by this time, dear. You only need the Bermuda air to make you weller than ever you were in your life before.
With lots of love …
[MTP; MTAq 99-100]. Note: D. Hoffman writes that Sam had tried to interest Robert Collier and wife to join him on the Jan. 25 excursion to Bermuda, but “reverted” to Ashcroft [88].
Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell.
Dear Joe:
Miss Lyon told me the contents of Sam Davis’s first letter, & I told her to pay no attention to it, he being a mere—VERY mere—acquaintance of mine, & his venturing to pass the hat to me on behalf of the oldest & proudest friend I’ve got in the world is damned impertinence, & properly an insult to both you & me. I said Davis was all ass; that there was nothing to him BUT ass; & that whenever he does a thing it is because he has an axe to grind; not for gain, but the mere axe of a busybody, a meddler seeking to advertise himself & seem to be on familiar terms with people who care not a godam about him.
When your letter came, a minute ago, Miss Lyon explained that there had been another letter from Davis on this matter, but none from Tufts. She or Paine answered Davis’s letter—without my permission, (which would not have been granted.)
I am in bed bronchially & struggling with two doctors, but in 3 days I expect to be up & at sea —for Bermuda. I hardly know what I am writing, because my head is dizzy with drugs. My hand, too; but there’s nothing trembly about yours.
With love / Mark [MTP].
Note: Samuel Post Davis (1850-1918); Davis’ tale, “The First Piano in Camp” appeared in Mark Twain’s Library of Humor (1888) [Gribben 179]. Davis was considered one of the talented writers in the “Sagebrush School” of literature. A journalist all over the west he arrived in Virginia City in 1875, some eleven years after Mark Twain left. Davis also wrote poetry and sketches, including “The Typographical Howitzer,” a witty tale in the tradition of Twain. Perhaps his major achievement was the 1913 publication of History of Nevada in two volumes. Joe Goodman had written about Davis to Twain a few times (see Vol. I), but exactly when or if Twain ever met Davis is not clear. See the following readings for more on Davis:
Berkove, Lawrence I. “Samuel Post Davis in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction Writers, Vol. 202 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale Research, 1999.
———, ed. Insider Stories of the Comstock Lode and Nevada’s Mining Frontier, 1859-1909. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
———., ed. The Sagebrush Anthology. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The King is going to Bermuda. / Wandering Jew. A psychic day. Howells letters” [MTP: IVL TS 11].
Thomas Hastings for the Architectural League wrote to Sam, enclosing an engraved invite to the annual dinner on Jan. 31, and mentioning John Mead Howells’ urging of Sam to attend [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Jan. 27, ‘08”
Jervis Langdon II wrote from Elmira to announce to Sam that the organ at St. James Church, NYC will be “practically finished the latter part of this week.” He’d read Sam was ill and going to Bermuda—would it be possible for Sam to go and hear the organ before he left? And, if he liked it would he help plot to get Andrew “Carnegie to hear it as we have already talked of doing”? [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “As soon as Mr. Clemens comes back from Bermuda we’ll arrange for Mr. Carnegie to go & hear it when I go”
Dorothy Quick wrote to Sam.
My Dear Mr Clemens / Thank you so much for our picture it is lovely and I am glad to have it I hope your cold is better now I am better but have not been to school yet the doctor is giving me a tonic and in another week I expect to be all right Mother say she dont think I will be able to come this Saturday but I hope surely the Saturday after I can come if you want me with much love to Miss Lyon and lots and lots and lots for you I am your loving little / Dot [MTP; MTAq 100]. Note: Dorothy hadn’t quite mastered the period, but did (sometimes) put several spaces between her sentences.