March 27 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

My head is full of obstetrical hooks and slants and jabs for today I began to study shorthand. I don’t see how anyone can ever put soul into that sort of writing. It would seem wrong to put down Mr. Clemens’s thoughts like that—but it’s for Mr. Clemens’s thoughts that I’m trying to learn it. It is very lonely without Saint Mother, but who am I that I should be lonely in the presence of a loveliness like Mr. Clemens’s [MTP: TS 47].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Telephoned asking Mr. Doubleday to call. He called [visited] & talked about Mr. Rogers. / Dr. Oppenheimer answered Mr. Clemens’s note of Mar. 22 [not extant]. He is irritated” [MTP TS 9]

In Rochester, N.Y., a high school girl, Hilda Farrar, wrote to Sam asking his advice on what to read before writing an essay on Joan of Arc. She had read his article in Harper’s “with great pleasure” [MTP]. Note: Sam’s answer is catalogued “on or after Mar. 27,” but it is highly unlikely a letter from Rochester would have reached N.Y.C the same day; Mar. 28 ca. Is estimated.

H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam.

I have thought the matter over very carefully, and conclude that I do not want anything published. I don’t see how I can get around to it. There does not seem to be any occasion for it in the first place, and then I don’t see how I could quite talk to you as freely as you would want [MTHHR 582-3]. Note: Frank N. Doubleday had sought a biographical article on Rogers for the World’s Work (see Doubleday to Sam, Mar. 23).

John Larkin wrote to Sam, enclosing his “bill for services rendered to you as Executor of this Estate” [Livy’s] [MTP].

W. Robson for the Plasmon Company of America sent another stockholder meeting announcement for Apr. 27 at 2:30 p.m. [MTP].