February 23 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Abbott Handerson Thayer:
“Dear Mr. Thayer— / If this should ever reach you, please let me know, for I want to ask about summer-house chances, in Dublin. / Sincerely Yours / SL. Clemens / It is Alice Day who tells me she thinks this may find you” [Archives of American Art, Thayer family papers online image 35456, accessed Mar. 2, 2010]. Note: Dublin, N.H.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight Mr. And Mrs. Loomis dined here. Mr. Clemens was delightful, of course. While we were at dinner Mrs. Mott called me up to ask Mr. Clemens and Jean to dine there tomorrow evening. She to read some of her Harvard son’s stories to him. Jean remonstrated when Mr. C. bade me tell Mrs. Mott he wasn’t going out for months, saying “If you’re going to lie, tell a good one ”—“ Little ones are no ‘count.”
Mr. Clemens said he was now on “Adam’s Soliloquy”. He can make those old frauds say about themselves what no one would dare say of them [MTP: TS 41]. Note: Edward Loomis and Julia Langdon Loomis.
Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Tonight Mr. & Mrs Loomis dined here. Sent a check for $25 to Mrs. Tabitha Greening Palmyra, mo. / Mr. Edward Browning who attended to transferring Mr. Clemens’s pension to Mrs. Greening is dead ‘ [MTP TS 6]. Note: she meant Edward F.Brownell.
An unidentified person wrote on American Building & Engineering Reports stationery (Chicago and N.Y.) to ask if Sam planned to build a hotel in Hannibal, and enclosing a card for him to fill out. On or just after this date Isabel answered for Sam (draft in pencil): “Still in bed & hope to remain there for a few years yet. Read & smoke & write all he wants to & is having a good time” [MTP]. Note: on Feb. 15 Sydney J. Roy wrote announcing a company to build a hotel in Hannibal. This unidentified person likely saw such announcements by Roy.
Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote to Sam on the bottom of Stanchfield’s Feb. 16 letter: “Wright is to meet Mr. Stanchfield at the Hoffman House to-morrow evening. / Yours …” [MTP].
Sam’s essay, “Adam’s Soliloquy” was written before Feb. 23, 1905 and remained unpublished during his lifetime. It was collected in Europe and Elsewhere (1923), edited by Albert Bigelow Paine [Budd, Collected 2: 1009].
February 23? – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C., Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to Erving Winslow’s Feb. 21 that he was recovering from a long illness and had no objection to being named as vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League if it wouldn’t “entail active support on his part” [MTP].