December 16 Wednesday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
Dear Clemens:
I have just telephoned your butler that I can’t come to-morrow, and I’m so doubtful about the rest of the week that I shall have to telephone again. If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know I’m not coming, till heaven knows when. My bowels of compassion have broken loose in the wrong direction, and if I came now I should have to pass my visit in your bath-room, except when I came out for a banquet of boiled rice and hot milk. You might not think this so gay as I should. / Yours ever / W.D. Howells [MTHL 2: 840].
Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Layton Crippen London Times staff December 16-18
Note: Layton W. Crippen (1864-916) was later on the staff of the New York Times. Crippen had accompanied Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the London Times, on a tour of Canada and the US, and wrote articles describing the travels for Northcliffe’s papers. He was the first to describe the contents of J.Pierpont Morgan’s library. He also wrote two books that won critical acclaim, Fujiyama and Olympus (1905), and Clay and Fire (1914), a metaphysical discussion. Not in Gribben.
Richard R. Bowker wrote to Sam.
Dear Mr. Clemens: / I was a little surprised the other day, in view of your publicly announced opposition to burglary and such like, that you permitted yourself to walk off with my excellent over-coat and saddled me with a really inferior article. If the balance of trade had been the other way, I should have felt reason to be more forgiving. But Christmas is coming and just now we must be forgiving even under the most exasperating circumstances. I might have thought you as innocent, as abroad or at home, you make profession to be, but I think that any man who will write anything that could be translated into such an outrageous word as you will find on page 240 of a work which I am sending you, purporting to be a Swedish translation of Tom Sawyer, might be guilty of anything.
Even of your latest invention in copyright which Johnston [sic, likely Robert Underwood Johnson] and I and others have been talking over since you spoke of it. Seriously, we should hope that the attention of Congress would not be diverted from the bill well under way by new propositions such as that you suggest. Nor do I think that suggestion would stand full analysis. In most cases of popular works a fifty or even twenty-five cent edition is published within the copyright term, and your proposal would mean a five cent or two-and-a-half cent edition to hold the copyright, which edition must be kept perpetually in print. It is quite true that a large proportion of copyrights are not of value beyond the original term, as you have so often argued. But what we are hoping for is the period of life and fifty years, which was adopted a few weeks ago by the Berlin Conference, whose convention provides also that throughout the family of nations made into a copyright world-league, the formality necessary in the country of origin shall protect an author throughout all the other countries. Russia, Austro-Hungary, and the United States are now the only people out in the cold. / With best wishes of the season, … [MTP].
W.G. Chapman for the International Press Bureau, Chicago wrote to ask Sam for about 500 words for a new daily humor service [MTP]. Note: “Ans Dec 21 MLH”
Daniel Frohman for the Lyceum Theatre wrote to Sam. “I have received for Margaret your beautiful book ‘Joan of Arc’ and will write her of it. When she comes back she will see you. She is now in California with all good wishes to you and yours” [MTP]. Note: Margaret Illington Frohman.
Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Isabel Lyon (though catalogued as to Clemens) [MTP].
Thomas Commerford Martin for Electrical World wrote to Isabel Lyon (though catalogued as to Clemens) [MTP]
Thorvald Solberg for the Library of Congress wrote to Sam. “…receipt this morning of your secretary’s note of Dec. 14, stating that you still desire the list of renewals…and send it to you forthwith..no charge” [MTP]. Note: “Ans Dec 18 MLH”; and IVL: “This is just what I wanted. I am very much obliged”
Joe Twichell wrote to accept Sam’s invitation to come for a day’s visit, and he, accepted it instantly and unconditionally. We want much to see the house, but a great deal more to see you. We wish we might come right off. We can’t, however, till after the holidays. …There are lots of things I am eager to know your views upon—Roosevelt for one—as he is figuring now-a-days. I like him better than ever [MTP].
Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.