December 19 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Dec. 18 from H.H. Rogers.
Dear Admiral:
That trip would just suit me, & I should ever so much like to make it with a real holy crowd such as you have mentioned, but as the doctor has vetoed all projected trips of any considerable size since I was knocked out for several days by something akin to a sunstroke acquired by heat & over-fatigue at Sam Moffett’s funeral last August, he will say no again, now, sure. But I am myself aware that I couldn’t stand it. I am as brisk & active a young thing as there is in my country—on a brief strain; but it has to be pretty brief. My flying trip to New York a week or two ago, [est. Dec. 12] with its unaccustomed industries, live interests, & activities, kept me tired out & played out for several days afterward. My health is so fine, so perfect, so splendid that it stands every test & holds its own against every assault except over-fatigue. You will have a grand time down at Norfolk. And you will deserve it, too. You have carried that giant enterprise through as patiently & quietly & unostentatiously as a geologic period overlays a continent with a new crust—well, it’s just great! That majestic environment is the triumph of your life, & will be & remain your eulogy & your monument in the far by-&-bye.
I hope Mrs. Rogers will soon get well, so that you & she can come up here. It is always peaceful here, always still, always restful; & in all these 6 months there has never been any weather that couldn’t take the chrome in an international weather-show. Can’t you come in January or February? I hope so.
Betsy & we had a good time here. She is coming by & by to stay a month, in the spring or the summer.
Mr. Benjamin has my heartiest congratulations; & so have you all.
Get nearer to God. It is the best investment there is. Tell Rice, too [MTHHR 657-8].
About this day Sam inscribed a copy of TS to Charles T. Werner: “Merry Christmas / to / Charles T. Werner / from / The Author / 1908.” [MTP].
Note: Werner dated this as Dec. 19, and wrote, “this book … given to me in appreciation of my time & services as one of the incorporators of the Mark Twain, Inc. Mr. Ashcroft, the attorney introduced me at the time. Chas T. Werner, Dec. 19th.” Above this is written: “John B. Werner 951 Prospect Pl.”
Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Ossip Gabrilowitsch The planet at large December 19 ————- à To stay & rest a spell & do some composing undisturbed.
An unknown photographer (Lyon? Or William Ireland Starr?) took a picture of Sam looking out a window; he enclosed it with a note to Charles C. Clarke on Dec. 22. Coincidentally, the photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn visited Stormfield Dec. 21-22, but on the Dec. 22 Sam wrote that this one was taken “last Saturday.” See Dec. 22 entry.
Isabel Lyon attended the second quarterly meeting of the Mark Twain Library Association She was third vice-president; five members present [MT Library minutes, copied by Tenney Nov. 15, 1981].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: English men. / Library Executive Meeting, but first Benar & I drove down to the lot that Mr. Theodore Adams is going to give for a building site for the library. It made me ill in my soul to see the men pacing off double the quantity of land needed & to see Mr. Adams’s expression of distress when he saw them devouring the land with mighty strides. I wanted to savagely cut the land down from 150 to 75 feet & I did cut it down. Mrs. Paine said they’d like half the lot. That would have meant an acre.
The snow is beautiful & this morning Gabrilowitsch & I shoveled a path down to the pergola for the King.
Tonight just after I got into bed at 9:30, Mr. Robert Collier telephoned to say that he is going to send a baby elephant, a real elephant up for the King’s Christmas [MTP: IVL TS 84].
Mark Sullivan in his 1938 memoirs, recorded more about the baby elephant episode:
Instantly Collier took for himself a role of deeply moved gravity, which assumed that the loneliness of Mark Twain was the most serious matter in the contemporary world. It must be remedied at once, in whatever way possible. To Mark he said there was one thing that could be done promptly. “You ought to have a friendly animal in the house. It would be company for you in the long winter evenings—something you could talk to, but that won’t talk to you. Not a dog, a dog wouldn’t be it. It must be the most intelligent animal in the world. Ah, I know—I’ll get you a baby elephant. It’ll be a Christmas present to you. I’ll fix it all up; it won’t be any trouble at all.
The sweep of Collier’s enthusiasm was such that Mark felt obliged to seem appreciative. Later, to Hapgood and Dunne, he expressed, profanely, his dismay: “I can’t have a damn baby elephant up there. The thing would grow up. The ceilings of the house are too low. You fellows have got to head Collier off.” But Dunne and Hapgood told Mark they could not head Collier off. “You know how he is when he gets going; there’s nothing we can do about it; you’ll just have to take the elephant, for a while anyhow.”
Collier busied himself with details. To Stormfield he sent a load of hay, with a letter to Mark saying the hay would last awhile and he would see it was renewed. He was, he told Mark, making further inquiry about the diet of young elephants and about their ways. It might be necessary to have a man to take care of the animal. But Collier would look after that too—everything would be arranged, Mark need not give it a thought.
At the office Collier twinkled into my room. We must pretend to send Mark a mahout—the very sound of the word delighted him. He called Mark on the telephone and told him the mahout would arrive a day or so before Christmas. For the role of mahout Collier considered one of the printers, whose stout figure would carry well the drapery of an oriental costume, and whose ruddy countenance would look impressive beneath a turban. We must get some books about elephants and their keepers, so that our mahout could instruct himself in the technical talk of that calling, and be able to convince Mark of his authenticity.
Presently Collier sent the mahout. And he sent the elephant. It arrived at Stormfield on Christmas morning. It would not, however, inconvenience Mark by growing up. It was of cotton [The Education of An American 232-3]
Eber A. Hodge for Danbury Business Men’s Assoc. wrote to invite Sam to be their guest and also to “say a few kind words” at their annual banquet on Jan. 18 [MTP]. Note: “Ans Dec 22 MLH”
Jessie M. Littleton for Estill & Littleton wrote from Winchester, Tenn. “I am shipping…a box of ‘BURGLAR BRAND’ tobacco”[MTP].