June 20 Saturday – In the morning in Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Clara, now in London.

Clara dear, I have been in residence two days, now, & I realize that this is the most satisfactory house I was ever in & also about the most beautiful. The Hartford house was a lovely home, but the architect damaged many of its comfort-possibilities & wasted a deal of its space. The New York house is a roomy & pleasant home, but it is sunless not beautiful. This house is roomy & delightful & beautiful, & no space has been wasted. The sun falls upon it in such floods that you can hear it. Miss Lyon has achieved wonders, I think. There isn’t a discordant note in the whole place, inside or out, except the dining room carpet. It is to be superseded.

The New York house is ours for another year, otherwise I would remain here, & never go back. If I could rent the New York house to somebody, I should never have to go to another banquet or make another speech.

Your outside bedroom (the Nightingale’s Cage), is the prettiest feature of the whole house. I expect to move into it when it is finished & furnished. No, I will lodge angel-fishes in it. Two will arrive this afternoon, & one governess.

Another one (Dorothy Butes, of 32 Carlisle Mansions, Victoria street) has been trying to get speech of you, & I hope she has succeeded before this time. Francesca Nunnally (of Atlanta), reached London yesterday, with her mother, & I hope they will find you.

Your cablegram about the recital rejoiced me, & I hope for full particulars about it soon.

With ever & ever so much love / Marcus

 I am going to put a tin roof on the house so that I can hear it better. Miss Lyon is overdone, quite. She would write to you if she could, but rest is best for her, & necessary. She did not write her mother on her 70th birthday. She will go to New York now for a couple of days, for repose & change [MTP]. Note: this letter written and the following Nunnally letter were written before the arrival of the two Angelfish—Dorothy Harvey with governess Pauline Martin, and Louise Paine; the following letter to Blackmer written after their arrival, likely in the evening.

Sam also wrote to Margaret Blackmer at Misses Tewksbury’s School, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

Dear Margaret, I thank you for inviting me to the musicale. I would have been there sure, if I had received the message in time.

Do you know, I lost my shell! The enameled one. I missed it from my chain a day or two before I sailed from Bermuda. I was so grieved about it! I didn’t tell you, when you visited me, because I hoped to be able to find a duplicate of it before I should see you again. And I was careful not to strike a histrionic attitude & exclaim,

“Why, you look almost exactly like a little Margaret of mine! Maybe you are that Margaret. I think not—I am afraid not —No, it is some other Margaret. If it was mine, she could produce the duplicate of this shell.”

I couldn’t say it, for I hadn’t any shell.

But I’ve got it now! The officers dined me at Prospect just before I sailed, & I lost the shell there, though I always had supposed it was stolen at the hotel. A waiter found it & the Major of the regiment has sent it to me. It was put into my hand when I stepped into this new country- house of mine for the first time, day before yesterday—a good omen!

Two angel-fishes arrived this afternoon, to stay a week, & we shall have good times. After dinner they took billiard-lessons until their bed-time, half-past 8. We took a long discovery- walk thro’ the woods first. I hope you will come & see me here one of these days. / With love & good wishes / SLC / Mr. Ashcroft is coming tomorrow [MTP; MTAq 179-80]. Note: Dorothy Harvey arrived with governess Pauline Martin of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Louise Paine also arrived from down the road. The trio would visit eight days [Guestbook].

Sam also wrote to Frances Nunnally, now in London with her parents.

You dear little fish, I suppose you are arriving in England today. I had  a cable from Clara 4 days ago, announcing a successful recital. I hope you & your mother will see her, but I don’t know her address—except J. S. Morgan & Co., bankers.

I have seen the house at last, & have been in it two days, now. You & your mother will like it when you step into it about the 20th of next September—to stay as long as you can. It is altogether satisfactory, & requires no change.

Half of my fishes are framed & are decorating the wall of the billiard room, on the ground floor, which is the Official Headquarters of the Aquarium, & the other half will be there presently. Your Atlanta picture & the London picture of the two of us are there.

I am so sorry I took the New York house for another year. If I hadn’t done that, I would never go back to New York again. Here there is nothing in sight between the horizons but woods & hills; & the stillness & serenity bring peace to the soul.

Good-bye, dear. With kind regards to your mother, & to you— / S L C

Two fishes will arrive at mid-afternoon—to stay a week, I hope—Dorothy Harvey & Louise Paine; also Dorothy’s governess [MTP; MTAq 180-81].

Sam also wrote to John Brown, Jr. (“Jock”).

Dear Mr. Jock:

I have economised the “Letters,” tasting them at intervals & making them last, but the pleasant feast is finished now, to my regret. In the book your father has painted his portrait with his own hand, with a free brush and unconsciously, & how beautiful it is! And in a sentence he has painted Mrs. Clemens, just as she was. Just as she was when she was a black-haired girl & he a white-haired youth with his spirit untouched by the years. Susy was with them, then— sometimes the eldest of the three! They are gone, now, all gone; & it seems as if they had never been—except in a dream.

I have built this house in the solitudes of the woods & the hills; it was finished & furnished yesterday—so to speak—& I am already in it & half-used to the healing deep stillness, & the flooding sunshine & the fainting & fading distances. It is next to unthinkable that only forty- eight hours ago I was still weltering in the tumult & turmoil & thunder of New York. It is a satisfactory house; a good place to live in, a good place to die in—presently. / Sincerely Yours / SL. Clemens [MTP].

Charles Rollinson Lamb, architect wrote from NYC to Sam, offering his services for the planned new building for the Children’s Educational Alliance [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Ansd.”