November 20 Monday – In New York Sam wrote to Joe Twichell. Sam was happy about some “delicious” happening or gift:
It couldn’t have happened to anybody but you. It has done me lots of good and I think it will be better than medicine for Livy, when she gets it on her birthday the 27th. This adventure and the dyed hair of a year and a half ago — well, they make a sparkling pair!
The reference is obscure (that’s what scholars say when they can’t figure out a document).
Sam also told Joe about the dinner with Henry Irving the night before; that Henry had asked about him and invited him to call at the Plaza Hotel the first time he was in town. Sam also urged Joe to see the play Becket with Irving in the title role.
It’s an ideal picture of what we all imagine the England of seven and a half centuries ago to have been. With lots of love to all of you [Joe had nine children!] [MTP].
Fatout lists a dinner speech for Sam at the St. Andrews Society in New York [MT Speaking 660]. Also, the New York Times, Nov. 21, p.8, “A Gala Night at the Fencers” reported that Sam attended a dinner for The Fencers Club at 37 West 22 Street on the evening of Nov. 20. Note: It’s possible that Sam attended both gatherings. Sam’s notebook carries a lined-out note: “Monday night 20th, 8 PM. Officers of St. Andrew Society, George Austin Morrison. Anser to 691 Fifth Ave, accepting” [NB 33 TS 39].
A GALA NIGHT AT THE FENCERS.
— — —
Brilliant Gathering to See Vauthier and Jacoby Fence.
The Fencers Club held a housewarming last night, and at the same time did honor to the new master at arms, Prof. L. Vauthier of the Cercle d’Escrime de la Madeleine, in Paris. It is the first reception the club has given in the new quarters, 37 West Twenty-second Street, since it took possession last Spring.
The meeting was the most brilliant event which has ever taken place in the annals of fencing in the United States. Never before have masters of the force of MM. Vauthier and Jacoby engaged together. There was much good fencing on the part of amateurs and of other professionals, but the “clou” of the evening was this classic combat. …
Many lights of the literary, artistic, and legal world were present. Mark Twain, Alexander Black, Brisben Walker, James Creelman, represented journalism and letters; Alexander Harrison, Robert Reid, Carroll Beckwith, Willard Metcalf, W. Sergeant Kendall represented the fine arts. The legal profession was there in the person of Mr. Frederic R. Coudert. Of fencing amateurs there were Messrs. Haubold, Blandey, Echeverria, Lawson, Bloodgood, and Eugene Higgins.
Mary Mapes Dodge wrote to Sam regarding the postponed serialization of TSA in St. Nicholas. There are several lines crossed out in the letter, as if written in haste [MTP].
Daniel Willard Fiske in Florence, Italy, wrote to Sam: “Your delightful note was one of the first things to greet me on my arrival here night before last.” He’d been delayed at Lausanne, Turin and Milan in “efforts to get up a creditable attack of heart disease.” Fiske wrote of furnishing his Villa Landor in Florence (enough now to entertain the Clemenses), of his difficulty finding a room in Paris, of his fears that Jews will, “ten years from now…be able to sweep all the Christians from the earth’s surface…by merely strychnizing the coffee all over the world on some pleasant morning” [MTP].