February 20 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J.

Wednesday An hour after Midnight

I got your dear Valentine, which I prize, & today I got your letter, & I thank you for it. And you didn’t take a single prize! Oh, you dear little rat, it was a shame, & I am sorry. Clara was very busy, or she would have sent you a Valentine. She is grieving, now, because she forgot it.

I’ve been to a banquet, to-night, [Pilgrim Club Dinner] & got away at 11, which is blessedly early, for a banquet. I played billiards an hour, & now I have gone to bed. I sail for Bermuda in the “Bermudian” Saturday morning, with H. H. Rogers, his son-in-law Benjamin, a man- servant, & Miss Lyon. It is for Mr. Rogers’s health. We shall stop at the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, & stay a month or two. You dear child, I wish you were going. /Most lovingly / SLC [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Julia Barnett Rice (Mrs. Isaac L. Rice): 

Dear Mrs. Rice. / I have an abundance of sympathy for this movement for the protection of children. If I were younger I would like to work for it. But now I thank you for the compliment you pay me, & shall be happy to have my name used as President of the Children’s Hospital Branch [MTP: The Forum, 39:564].

Note: This letter was included in a NY Times article, Feb. 27, p. 2, “Anti-Noise Society Reivews Progress.” Julia Barnett Rice (1860-1929) was a physician but never practiced; she was involved in medical issues and is credited with the creation of quiet zones around NYC hospitals. She was the founder of the Anti-Noise Society. Her husband Isaac Leopold Rice (1850-1915) was a manufacturer, lawyer, writer and chess expert who founded the school of political science at Columbia, founded The Forum magazine in 1885.

Raoul W. D’Arche wrote from Hartford to invite Sam to lecture for a benefit for the Spanish War Veterans. Twichell had told him they couldn’t get Mark Twain for $2,000 [MTP]. Note:

Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Feb. 21, 08” and “Mr. Clemens thanks him very much for his cordial invitation, but Mr. Twichell is right, he does not expect to ever again speak in Hartford as he has retired from the platform”

Frances Nunnally wrote from St. Timothy’s, Cantonsville, Md. to Sam, surprised to get his letter since she thought he might still be in Bermuda. How she wished she could have been there with him. She had just finished her mid-term exams [MTP].