February 26 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Kate Rogers Nowell.
“Dear Mrs Nowell: / Indeed the portrait is fine. I have said it before but the thought is brought up in my mind again by the Outlook’s reproductions—just received the other day—that they are fine also, one can see at a glance” [MTP]. Note: An artist from Mass. was employed, Kate Roger Nowell for The Outlook. No bio. information was found.
Sam also wrote a long letter to Dr. Moses Allen Starr on Dr. G.W. Kirch’s controversies, which included bill items and amounts, services not billed for but claimed later, and certificates needed for Livy’s transport. Sam closed the list of complaints with:
It is my belief, my conviction, that Dr. Kirch deliberately withheld the certificates, and that it was his intention to stop us in Naples by this means and add to our sorrows a deep humiliation. He is aware that through his conduct we came very near to being stopped there; and as he has never apologised nor offered to explain, I infer that his act was intentional.
This long chapter is my answer, Dr. Starr. I have not written it carelessly, but very carefully.
[After signature:]
Of course I do not know that Dr. Kirch’s bills were gouges, but I do suspect it. N. B. He made out his first bill not in Lire but in dollars—$900. It made me suspicious. Why should he make it out in dollars? No one keeps his Florentine bank account in dollars. I told my secretary to ask him to make it out again, and put it in Lire. He did it; and made it 4,500 Lire. $900 isn’t 4,500 Lire, it is $25 or $30 more than that.
It is as I have said: I do not know that the repudiated bill of 2,200 Lire was a propsed gouge, I only think it. Only a court can settle my doubts. I am so anxious to have them settled that I make this offer: if Kirch will sue me I will pay the 2200 Lire whether he wins the suit or loses it. I do not see how he can object to this. Within the past 7 months he has twice, of his own motion, tacitly threatened a suit. This present offer of mine is to encourage him to go on and carry out the threat [MTP]. Note: two strikeouts for how many weeks he’d been down in bed (6, 8, 10) reflect the likelihood that Sam worked on this letter for some time, probably a belated reply to Starr’s of Dec. 21, 1904. See also Starr’s reply of Mar. 9.
Sam also updated his prior inscription of Sketches New and Old (Hillcrest Ed.) to Clara Clemens: “Feb. 26, 1905. It was written a quarter of a century ago, but it sounds as if the excitement of today over the (alleged) newly-discovered Aphrodite by Praxiteles (as the ‘experts’ claim) had inspired it. M.T.” [Sotheby’s, Apr 13, 2004, lot 27] Note: Sotheby’s added this note: “About half of the volumes are sparingly marked with Clemens’s characteristic pencil and pen underlinings and marginal rules, and the conclusion of “The Capitoline Venus” in Sketches New and Old bears a 36-word autograph note.” See also Sam’s inscriptions to the Hillcrest Edition books for Clara and Jean of Nov. 27, 1904.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today I photoed John Joran and Drummond—2 policemen in Washington Square.
Today after Mr. Stanchfield left I went down to find Mr. Clemens lying in a youthful position over the big saddle bags in the drawing room, playing with Bambino. Then he went to lunch with Mrs. Laffan, and in the evening he and Jean went around to Mr. de Forest’s lovely house, to meet Sir Purdon Clarke [MTP: TS 41]. Note: Lockwood De Forest (1850-1932), architect, painter, designer, and importer of furnishings—a friend of Clarke’s—his house at 7 East 10 Street, was one of the most unusual in NYC. See insert, where Clemens met Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke.
Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Tonight Mr. Clemens & Jean dined with Mr & Mrs De Jones” [MTP TS 6]. Note: Lyon mistook De Forest here for de Jones. See above journal entry.