December 25 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Dorothy Butes.
“Consider well the proportions of things: it is better to be a young june bug than an old bird of paradise. Truly yours, Mark Twain. P.S. You owe me a visit Dorothy dear. Come—pay up & save your character! / S. L. C. Dec. 25, 1908” [MTP: David J. Holmes Autographs catalogs, No. 38, Item 267].
Sam also wrote a card to William Robertson Coe: “Xmas Day/08 / Dear Mr. Coe. I have been smoking your health in your noble cigars…wish you…were here…” [MTP: Sotheby Parke-Bernet catalogs, Apr. 30, 1975, No. 3748, Item 296].
Sam also sent the same postcard with a photo of himself, Ashcroft, and Lyon to Harriet W. Enders in Hartford, Conn., adding, “Dear Mrs. Hattie: / It was lovely of you & the crimes to remember me with that sumptuous muffler & the portraits. The pictured creatures are so beautiful that I concede—by compulsion—that the crimes are almost justified” [MTP].
Sam also sent the same postcard with a photo of himself, Ashcroft, and Lyon to Harriet E. Whitmore in Hartford, Conn. “Dear Mrs. Whitmore: / I thank you ever so much for that nice book & the remembrance it betokens. I am wishing you—& all of you—a happy Xmas, & my love added” [MTP].
Sam inscribed his 1908 two-volume copy of Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine, Ed. by Harriet S. Blaine Beale (1828-1903): “SL Clemens/ Xmas, 1908/ from Clara” [Gribben 74].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Such a beautiful Christmas the King has made for us by his being satisfied with all that Benar & I have done to make the house & the loggia lovely.
The elephant was all a joke of that beloved Robert Collier, made completer by the ton of hay & the make believe trainer. A toy elephant came this morning, but even when Benar & I unpacked it in the back hall, & he saw through it all, I didn’t, & flew on the telephone to talk to Mr. Lounsbury about it.
The tumultuous servants are at it again. Now Elizabeth is jealous because Harry & his wife had a basket of fruit & stuff sent them [MTP: IVL TS 87].
William Emerson wrote from Wash DC to ask Sam where he might find a story of his about “2 aunts a mother and a little girl who told a lie” [MTP]. Note: “Ans Dec 30 MLH”; and “Dec. 1903 Harpers Mag”
Elizabeth Wallace inscribed a copy of Aspects of the Earth: A Popular Account of Some Familiar Geological Phenomena (1904) by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (1841-1906): “presented to SLC by Betsy Wallace, 25 December 1908” [MTP; Gribben 636]. Note: see Dec. 29 and Gribben for several of Clemens’ marginalia on various pages of this book.
Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.