June 3 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Clara.
Well, Clärchen dear, I have your dear letter from ship board saying what fine shape you are in: also there are cablegrams whereby we know you sang twice last Saturday; & now I am waiting for particulars by mail. It seems a good while to wait, too.
I’ve been down-country 8 days, at Col. Harveys, & have had a charming time. I got back yesterday noon. I devoted the 8 days to trying to invent a name for the Redding house. After many & many a defeat, I won out at last, yesterday morning, & am quite well satisfied with my performance. I wanted a name that wasn’t use-worn; & wouldn’t resemble any other house’s name, either in this world or Sheol; & couldn’t be copied by anybody; & would at once suggest me to anybody hearing it uttered or seeing it in print, by suggesting my best-known book. I reckon INNOCENCE AT HOME covers these several grounds. Many populations will think it describes me, but I do not wish to seem to know that.
Have a good time, dear heart, & success, to your satisfaction & clear up to your utmost desire. / With lots & lots of love / Father [MTP]. Note: Clara would override Sam’s initial choice for the home, making it “Stormfield,” which may have contributed to the false notion that Twain’s final years were unhappy, unproductive ones.
Sam also wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
Dear Brer Duneka:
Ostler & I helped him out. Ostler put it into his head to go, & I furnished him a “philosophy of life.” The quoted paragraphs are (barring two or three inconsequential & unliterary errors) from my 70th-birthday speech of 2½ years ago. Reads pretty well, too! / Yrs ever … [MTP].
Note: Sam may have referred to Sir William Osler, who in one of his talks claimed a paraphrase from Mark Twain’s Christian Science, that “so-called Humanists have not enough Science, and Science sadly lacks the Humanities.” Since nothing like this claim was found in the book, Osler may have been “the whole force of Twain’s criticism, rather than one passage” [Osler’s ‘a way of life’ and other addresses, etc. note 124]. Just whom was helped by Clemens and Ostler is made clear by Duneka’s reply of June 4, “the Chicago man who killed himself on his 70th birthday quoting your great speech…” See Sam’s reply June 4.
From Google books: Sir William Osler (1849-1919) had a long and distinguished career as a physician and professor at McGill University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Johns Hopkins University, and finally, as the Regius Chair in Medicine at Oxford University. Over the course of his professional life, Osler gave many addresses—mostly to medical students—on medical ethics, medicine and the humanities, the relationship between the medical practitioner and the patient, and, as the titular essay makes clear, on the “way of life” he advocated for the ethical physician. He remains an inspiration to many contemporary medical practitioners; there are active Osler Societies throughout the world. While Osler’s talks were frequently published during his lifetime and they have been published individually and in different compilations since his death, none contain the over 1500 annotations that appear here, notes that serve to explain the many philosophical, biblical, historical, and literary allusions contained in Osler’s writings. This thoroughly explicated selection of Sir William Osler’s writings will be cherished by physicians, medical students, nurses, philosophers, theologians, and ethicists in this-and future-generations.
Sam also wrote to Frances Nunnally at St. Timothy’s School, in Catonsville, Maryland.
Francesca dear, I am ciphering over the situation. The country-house is finished & I shall move into it June 15th, by Miss Lyon’s guess. So I am planning as thus:
Sunday, June 7, my last public engagement here.
Monday, June 8. To Boston.
Tuesday, 9th. To Gloucester, to visit my daughter Jean, who has taken a house on the sea, near there.
Thursday, 11th. Back to New York, to see you next day.
That is my scheme. Tell me your hotel, dear, so that I can go & find you. And make a note of my telephone address, for it is not in the book: 3907 Gramercy. / With love [MTAq 167]. Note: Sam’s travel plans were changed; he wrote daughter Jean on June 5 that “I shall have to be here until near June 20.”
The New York Times, p. 12 reported an updated schedule for bankruptcy of the Plasmon Co. of America:
BUSINESS TROUBLES….
THE PLASMON COMPANY OF AMERICA.—Another set of schedules of the Plasmon Company of America, manufacturer of food products, 59 Pearl Street, of which Mark Twain was acting President, was filed yesterday by R. D. Hanna, Secretary. They show liabilities of $17,347 and assets of $4,173, consisting of stock, $1,500; cash in Knickerbocker Trust Company, $819; office furniture, $700; machinery and tools, $1,000, and accounts, $154. In addition to these assets there are unliquidated claims for damages to the goodwill of the business against S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain) fro $25,000 and R. W. Ashcroft for $5,000. The schedules filed several weeks ago showed liabilities of $26,843 and assets $1,395 [Note: Robert D. Hanna]
The Times, p. 5, “Child Actors Close The Winter Season,” also reported the final performance of the season, and announced that the Entertainment Department of the Educational
Alliance the following season would be incorporated as the Educational Theatre, under the management of Mark Twain, Robert Collier, Otto Kahn, the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, and President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University in Mass.
Lilian W. Aldrich wrote to Sam advising that the dedication exercises for the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial would be June 30. He would get a formal invite later [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Of course I shall be there if writing happens to prevent. Have an engagement in Boston for that evening but that will not prevent”
Ferris Greenslet for the Aldrich Memorial Museum wrote to Sam, detailing the upcoming ceremonies, asking for his brief remarks, five or ten minutes [MTP].
Dorothy Harvey wrote from Asbury Park, NJ to Sam. “I received your sweet letter to-day and think it very nice of you to write to your ‘angel-fish’. / I suppose Miss Lyon is very busy getting ‘Innocence at Home’ ready for you to live in and I should love to see it myself sometime. We had pie for lunch to-day and it was to bad that you were not here for it was very good indeed” [MTP; not in MTAq].
Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.