October 26 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added a line to his Oct. 24, 26 to Frances Nunnally: “Monday, 26th. Now if you are—however, I am interrupted” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to William Dean Howells.
Oh, I say! Where are you hiding, & why are you hiding? You promised to come here & you didn’t keep your word. (This sounds like astonishment—but don’t be misled by that.)
Come, fire up again on your fiction-mill & give us another promise. And this time keep it—for it is your turn to be astonished. Come; & stay as long as you possibly can. I invented a new copyright-extension scheme last Friday & sat up all night arranging its details. It will interest you. Yesterday I got it down on paper in as compact a form as I could. Harvey & I have examined the scheme, & to-morrow or next day he will send me a couple of copyright-experts to arrange about getting certain statistics for me.
Authors, publishers & the public have always been damaged by the copyright laws. The proposed amendment will advantage all three—the public most of all. I think Congress will pass it & settle the vexed problem permanently.
I shall need your assent, & the assent of about a dozen other authors. Also the assent of all the large firms among the 300 publishers. These authors & publishers will furnish said assent I am sure. Not even the pirates will be able to furnish a serious objection, I think.
Come along. This place seemed at its best when all around was summer-green; later it seemed at its best when all around was burning with the autumn splendor; & now, once more it seems at its best, with the trees masked & the ground a painter’s palette. / Yours ever [MTP; MTHL 2: 835-6]. Note: latter source notes claim that Sam’s copyright scheme has not survived, but gives MTB p.1641 and speculates as to the main considerations, that is, the author after 42 years would be able to extend copyright 30 more, when certain conditions were met.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Englishman. / The soul is so dead within me. It must be a pathological condition; for when I saw Dr. Quintard in the train on Wednesday he said I was badly in need of rest and change. I cannot have either, and so I must try to develop the soul within me. It is so dead.
Later. But it isn’t dead. It’s just over its ears in mud—the mud of criticism—no, misunderstandings fired by C.C. and I’m a coward to not know that mud can clarify things in time, and can build a foundation from which I’ll be the better able to see the King.
Benares went hurtling away today, glad to get clear of the mud; but breathing at me his sweet philosophy that we must pay for what we have. And to hold so great a treasure as the King means that the price one must pay can never be too high a one. It will be a high one. But to know that you know the King is to send big roots down to support your tree [MTP: IVL TS 75- 76].
Charles Emerson Cooke for The Friars, NYC wrote to invite Sam to a dinner recognizing the actor, John Drew, Oct. 31 at 10:30 p.m. [MTP]. Note: “Ans. Oct 29 MLH”
Republic Magazine, St. Louis, sent a telegram:
Professor Guthrie of University of the South in lecture here says that Mark Twain’s humor “is mostly rot” though he concedes “he has genius”. “Just compare him with Alphonse Daudet who was required by the People of France to be extremely refined in his offerings and there you have the difference”. He says will you reply to him through columns of the Republic wiring direct at our expense [MTP].