July 7 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie, thanking him for “that great contribution which you made to the Herald fund.” He explained that since he wasn’t disabled, Livy wouldn’t allow him to accept any money, but he thanked him “all the same. It was like you: You always back your friendships.”
I am trying to persuade my wife to let me go home and lecture the coming winter, and if I get her to yield I’ll pull myself out of debt, and then call at your house and drink a right gude willie waught wi’ you and Mrs. Carnegie, to whom I send my high regards [MTP: Cyril Clemens’ Mark Twain: The Letter Writer. 1932. p. 165]. Note: Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland.
Sam also wrote to his nephew, Samuel E. Moffett.
We have given up the house & are leaving for the Continent. Mr [Frank Marshall] White has just sent me Mr. Hearst’s cable saying “no.” And he is right. I never could have written the articles to suit me; they would have gone into my waste-basket, with dreadful certainty—no, they wouldn’t, because I should have been too wise to undertake so large a contract.
Sam also confided he’d made an agreement with James B. Pond to lecture in the US in the fall and winter should Livy consent. He hadn’t yet asked her and he was “very much afraid she never will.” Sam was glad about Samuel’s promotion [MTP]. Paine writes that Pond’s offer was $50,000 for 125 nights on the platform in America, and that even though Clemens was willing, Livy opposed the plan, judging his health was not up to the steady travel it would require. “In the end the offer was declined” [MTB 1044]. Sam wrote in his notebook for July 7 that Pond had made the offer the day before, or July 6 [NB 41 TS 43].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers: The “long terrible job the writing & double-revising” of FE was over; Andrew Chatto was about to mail Rogers the MS the day before. The family was leaving for the Continent and Chatto would forward their mail, but he wouldn’t know what their address would be for four to six weeks.
Pond is here trying to get me to lecture in America all the fall & winter, & I desperately want to do it, but Mrs. Clemens is not in favor of it—still I sort of hope to bring her around.
The people here seem determined to get up a fund for me, without regard to whether I need it or not, & then think they can convince Mrs. Clemens to-night—but that is because they don’t know her.
Sam asked Rogers to hand Jesse Grant an enclosed note, and he expected “they are a poor lot, those Grants,” blaming Charles Webster’s “treachery” for giving the Grants $20,000 that belonged to him from the New York General Agency commissions. “We ran that agency ourselves & they were not entitled to a penny of it. Webster was a particularly low-down dog” [MTHHR 290 & 291n2]. Note: the “enclosed” for Grant was a reminder of Sam’s $500 loan made to the Grants in 1885. Also enclosed was a letter from Chatto & Windus to H.H. Rogers advising they were sending a 156- page portion of IA as requested, in regards to the copyright “protection of the volume.” It may have been required to renew the copyright, which expired after 28 years.
Sam also inscribed a copy of PW to Charles Lancaster: “To / Charles Lancaster / with best wishes & kindest remembrances from / Mark Twain / None of us can ever have as many virtues as the fountain pen, nor half its cussedness; but we can try.—P.W.’s New Calendar” [MTP].
Sam’s notebook on about this day: “Will Gillette is lying very ill at his hotel—no one is allowed to see him. He has made fame & is prosperous. That is the kind that death likes to set free” [NB 41 TS 44].
John Y. MacAlister came to the Clemens’ apartment late, but evidently did not receive an answer to his knock at the door as Sam did not hear him from his study, though he was in his study waiting for MacAlister until midnight [Livy to MacAlister July 8].