September 7 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I want to send you Twichell’s letter, but it is lost—not permanently, I merely can’t find it. I was going to carry it to you when I thought I was going to Fairhaven from Norfolk, & so I must have put it away too carefully. I will find it between now & next time I see you.

I do not get entirely over my lameness, & the gout has never kept up its threatenings so long before. Certainly the righteous do have a rough time of it in this world, I wish I was like Rice.

I haven’t any news: this letter hasn’t any office to perform except to let you know I am still existent, so that you can sleep easy. / Ys Ever [MTHHR 597]. Note: source identifies Twichell’s letter as “another letter of gratitude” Aug. 14, for the $1,500, which Sam pretended was his largesse.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mr. Clemens’s grand niece was born today. I went to Keene. Mr. Clemens has had indigestion again. Tonight he was very interesting, as always, in his talk of Rajah Brook [sic] and his Borneo Colony. This morning Mrs. [Henry Copley] Greene came up to talk over the misunderstanding about the house, for Mr. Clemens can’t have it next year and he thought he could [MTP TS 95].

Note: the grand niece was daughter to Julia Langdon Loomis and husband. James Brooke (1803-1868) granted the title of Rajah of Sarawak in 1841; he was accused of excessive force against the natives of Sarawak.

C. Diamond, Editor for Catholic Press wrote to ask Sam for a copy of his pamphlet “King Leopold’s Soliloquy.” Diamond wondered why, “atrocities on negroes in the United States which are being constantly perpetrated and for which hardly ever any punishment is inflicted and which atrocities are supported by public opinion, should be passed over as of no consequence, while unsupported allegations of wrong-doing in the Congo State are made the subject of eloquent denunciation…” [MTP].

Daniel De Leon’s article, “An Irrepressible Humorist” ran in Daily People (NY) about Mark Twain [Tenney 41].

September 7 ca. – Sam answered Len G. Westland’s Sept. 4 letter of praise. “And I, also, take off my hat to you; and with many thanks to you for what you have said” [MTP]. Note: The MTP catalogs this as “on or after 4 Sept.” Three days estimated postal time is allowed here.