June 29 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Norfolk, Conn.
Ah dear heart, I am very sorry you are not going to be able to sing the Two Grenadiers BUT I shan’t be sorry if you are with us instead of out on the concert stage singing for strangers.
Yes, my bronchial affection is in a sense permanent: my port lung got a permanent damage in Berlin, & if I should catch 500 colds they would all be followed by bronchitis.
I shall be glad to see Togo & Bro. & the sorrowful hound when I come. We have no live stock here except Jean’s blind brontosaurus & her beautiful horse.
I have been in bed all day, because I got back my back last night. I thought it was going to be bad, but it seems to have disappeared. I have spent the day reading the book I wrote in Florence. I destroyed 125 pages of it, & expect to go over it again to-morrow & destroy 25 more. Then I think I will take hold of it & finish it, dropping the microbe book meantime.
Col. Higginson sat by my bed an hour to-day, looking like the grandfather of himself as I used to know him 25 or 30 years ago. He is a sterling man, & I am glad he’s a neighbor. We’ve got a number of very choice neighbors. Col. H. said it was Mr. Darwin who first introduced him to the Jumping Frog & made him read it.
Jean has just paid me a visit, & has ordered me to eat some breakfast in the morning, but I probably shant. I have been fasting 26 hours now. It is good for me. No, it isn’t fasting—I take a little plasmon every 3 hours. That is very different from fasting.
With best love, dear Ashcat [MTP]. Note: Clara was in seclusion for her health. She stayed at Mrs. Bratenglier’s in Norfolk, Connn.; As Hill points out, in the fourth paragraph Sam discusses his switch from Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes to The Mysterious Stranger [111]. “The Two Grenadiers,” German song; see Gribben p. 305. Togo & Bro. & the sorrowful hound was likely noted in a not-exant letter from Clara. Jean carved wooden creatures and the “blind brontosaurus” was likely one; her horse was “Scott.”
Sam also wrote to Samuel J. Elder of Elder & Whitman Attorneys, the letter not extant but referred to in Elder’s July 3 reply.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: All day Mr. Clemens has been in his bed, and fasting—a wretched indigestion has been troubling him for several days now. This afternoon as Jean and I were having tea on the porch, Col Higginson came. He joined us out there and had some tea and things and then went up to see Mr. Clemens. He is older than I expected to find him and fondly full of his daughter who is to be married in September. He said that this morning he received a notice from some Italian that the Barberini palace in Rome is for sale at a million dollars. He spoke of Moncure D. Conway’s wife as being a most remarkably fine woman, her great gift of common sense never deserting her. When he came down from Mr. Clemens’s room I led him out to the path through the woods—but first we stopped to talk of the very charming little story that his daughter wrote some time since. I had to tell him how lovely it is, and he said that there was no surer way to reach his heart than in a word of praise of his daughter [MTP TS 71].
Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “John Lewis’s pension is and now. / This afternoon Col. Higginson called” [MTP TS 22].
Dr. Thomas S. Barbour for the Congo Reform Assoc. wrote to Sam. “We are in consultation with Harper & Brothers and the American News Company as to plans of publication. Our debt to you is very great” [MTP].
Maria C. Gay (Mrs. Julius Gay) wrote from Farmington, Conn. to Sam, asking for an introduction to her cousin and his professor friend, who were nearby Dublin: I have been asked to give Dr Henderson and Stuart Montgomery a card of introduction to you, which of course I do not wish to do without first explaining them to you and asking your permission—Dr Henderson has written several delightful books; one a story, and two volumes of essays, all published by Houghton and Mifflin—He is a Harvard graduate, has lived abroad, and travelled much—Last year Stuart Montgomery (my cousin) went around the world with him, in fact has been much of the time with him during the last four years—New he is a student at Harvard, but is with Dr Henderson this summer at a camp near Dublin that the Dr. has had five or six years for boys, mostly Philadelphia boys, and some Harvard students— ….
My cousin and the doctor have just learned that you and your family are lodged for the summer at Dublin, hence their letter of request to me, knowing that I had the pleasure of an acquaintance with you—It really delighted my heart last spring at Mrs Day’s to see you and Jean looking and seeming so well; I had a lovely talk too and visit with Mrs Crane— … [MTP]. Notes: See Isabel V. Lyon’s answer for Sam ca. July 1. See Vol. II for entries on Gay. Charles Hanford Henderson (1861-1941), educator and writer, had been headmaster at the private school for boys, Chestnut Hill Academy near Philadelphia.
Robert W. Jones for Housekeeper Magazine wrote apologies to Sam for including a “little story” related by Dr. C.W. Brown of Wash. D.C., formerly of Elmira. The story proved false.
“The wisdom of Mr. Boswell, who reserved his anecdotes until after his victim’s death, is now apparent to me. I promise never again to indulge in biography” [MTP].
June 29 ca. – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon responded for Sam to M. Worth Colwell’s June 26 letter from New York [MTP]. Note: MTP has this as “on or after June 26.” Here time is allowed for Colwell’s letter to travel from N.Y. to N.H. and be answered.