March 16 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Today Mr. [Moncure] D. Conway called to see Mr. Clemens. I was peeping for a sight of him through a crack in the big drawing room doors as he came down stairs to leave, when I heard his voice behind me in the dining room where he had gone for a glimpse of the Millet portrait of Mr. Clemens. He is 73, he looks all of it, and has a noble head, white hair and the wealth of years in his face. Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens talked of him and told how Mr. Conway had gone to see Roosevelt in Washington, and he spoke of the beautiful Watt painting “Life and Love” which Watt gave to the United States. The President liked it and had it taken from the Corcoran Gallery to the White House. Some elderly women (“old hens”, Mr. Clemens called them) saw it and condemned the picture from their moral point, upon which the political Roosevelt removed it and had it taken to a garret room in the White House, and there the beautiful gift to a nation lies. A moral coward [MTP: TS 44]. Note: in her Mar. 17 entry, Lyon wrote “Mrs. Day came in last evening.”

Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Mr. Moncure D. Conway called. He thought Prof Gelli’s portrait of Mr. Clemens ‘very strong’” [MTP TS 8]. Note: Edoardo Gelli (1852-1933 ), Italian genre and portrait painter, who did a portrait of Clemens in Florence in the spring of 1904.

Annie McAleer wrote from Hartford to Clemens. “Your letter inclosing check received and Papa wishes to thank you for same. / He feels very certain that he can manage the mater [sic] you spoke of having had quite a little experience with electric motors, when working at the Auditorium, the method of working the two kinds are some different, he realizes…. / Respectfully yours [MTP]. Note: Patrick McAleer’s daughter.