November 28 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. where he wrote to Robert Bacon, Asst. Secretary of State, who was seeking more information about England’s willingness to act against Leopold.
For lack of time I was not able to send you those Congo documents yesterday, but I shall have them forwarded to-day. In England the matter is in the hands of John Morley & some strong peers and bishops, & I feel pretty sure that they will push it along to a point where America can drop in & take a hand without much embarrassment [MTP]. Note: see Nov. 27 (Hawkins), and Dec. 4 from Bacon.
Sam also wrote to Robert Reid.
I am just home from a trip; & I am sorry it isn’t a dinner to the brush instead of the pen; or a dinner to both brush and pen, for it is the only 70 I shall ever celebrate, & I wish the Colonel could let me have them all, for this once, with you where of right you belong, at the head of the brushes. Robert, will you think of me at your 70th , and be sorry in your turn? You must [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt (1861-1948), second wife of Theodore Roosevelt, thanking her for hosting the luncheon he shared on Nov. 27 with them. I did not half thank you for your charming hospitality, but I assure you I was sincerely grateful, nevertheless. I was troubled in my mind, all the time, because I was afraid the President did not know I had come to Washington to ask for a private word with him on a public matter—yet I had to intrude it, for I am a citizen, & the matter was on my citizen-conscience & must be unloaded, so that I might get personal relief. That is why we unload our consciences. We shift the burden. Whither? Mainly—in these days—to the President’s shoulders. Everybody does it: all the nations do it. It is not fair, it is most unfair; yet our consciences are so constructed that they will spare no one when they need relief from a burden, not even an already vastly overburdened President; particularly a President whose heart is always & promptly generous, & likely to be open to appales which are not made in a personal & sordid interest but in behalf of a matter clothed in the dignity of an honorable & national importance. It distressed me to have to add myself to his long list of burden-shifting benevolent persecutors; it touched my hardened conscience that he bore it so patiently. And certainly it is a hardened conscience, & a persistently increasing puzzle to the pathologist. It is now 5 times that I have been operated on for appendicitis, at perilous risk of my life, only to find that it was not my appendix that was inflamed, but only my conscience. We hope to get it, next time, & sequester it in a bottle.
I beg to be mentioned to Miss Roosevelt, whom I have met, & to the boys, whom I would so like to meet. To you, dear Mrs. Roosevelt, & to his Excellency I offer my homage & high regard; & him I would have thanked for remembering me in the midst of his heavy duties when the irremediable disaster of my life fell upon me, but there are things which we cannot say, for the voice breaks [MTP]. Note: the burden Sam unloaded to the President was the Congo situation. See Dec. 3 article. [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Yesterday Mr. Clemens lunched at the White House. His description of Mrs. Roosevelt would be gratifying to her, and to the President too, for Mr. Clemens found her charming, simple and without any shred of self consciousness, a lovely woman. Mr. Clemens liked the President as much as he always does—“you can’t help liking him for he is a magnetic creature, and he shows his teeth in a forceful smile, just as much as ever,” and he unconsciously says that he is “De-lighted” to see you, just as the caricaturists have it on the record [MTP TS 110].
Mona E. Brookman wrote to to offer birthday wishes Sam, and to ask for a photograph
Twelve year old Noel E. Evans wrote from Des Moines, Iowa to offer birthday wishes, as it would also be his birthday and Thanksgiving Day [MTP].
Joe Goodman wrote from Alameda, Calif. to Sam, typed on a stiff paper board:
The bearer of these credentials is a fast friend of mine, and was of all our old Comstock comrades, and would have been of yours but for the misjoinder of a few years. He is about the only man on the Slope to whom I would give a passport. In official circles he is Hon. S.P. Davis, Controller of the State of Nevada; but to the world at large he is Sam Davis, the representative humorist of the Pacific Coast.
He is an ardent admirer of yours—so much so, that he has been lecturing about you. But, though his appreciation of your work is the best I have ever seen in print, he is so off on his reckoning as to facts that I want him to hail you and lay a true course.
The Mark Twain cult is having a boom here, just now—running neck-and-neck with Christian Science, and being played for a winner. There have been two full pages of it in the Sunday supplements within a month. One of the devotees—James Tufts, a veteran editor of the San Francisco “Examiner”—has the rarest collection of your works in existence, probably. It comprises not only first editions of all your books—including the Canadian and English ones—but he has ransacked the magazines back to the ‘60’s, and has all your scattered writings, magnificently bound and illustrated by every picture of you obtainable. It follows necessarily that he is a good fellow. Davis can tell you about him. Should you and Sam happen to meet in New York, I would like you to go to the Regal (corner of Seventh avenue and 17th street, I think, as you will see by reference to your note-book) and take a beer and sandwich, in memory of old times. / Yours as always, … [MTP].
Winifred Meyer in Cambridge, Mass. wrote congratulations and birthday wishes [MTP].
Alex Montgomery in St. Louis wrote congratulations and birthday wishes [MTP].
Ewald Plaminschetz sent a panoramic picture postcard of Vienna, Austria with congratulations and birthday wishes (in German) [MTP].
Mary Reynolds in Cape Girardeau, Mo. wrote congratulations and birthday wishes; she knew Clemens when he was a river pilot [MTP].
George W. Smith wrote from the Hotel Wendell, Pittsfield, Mass. to send congratulastions on a “long, brilliant and sustained career in letters” with birthday wishes [MTP].
An unidentified person wrote Sam “Best wishes from (One of your admirers)” on a picture postcard of Idora Falls, Youngstown, Ohio [MTP].
William S. Wallace wrote from Chicago offering congratulations and birthday wishes [MTP].
Josephine Curtis Woodbury in Greenwich, Conn. sent two poems about death to Sam [MTP].
November 28 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Sumner Bass Pearmain.
M Clemens has just returned from Washington very tired—& so directs me to write for him in answer to your letter of Nov. 26th He wishes me to thank you very much for your offer of hospitality, if he were to accept M . Parker’s invitation to be a guest of the Beacon Society—but to say that naturally he is declining because he accepts no invitations that he is not obliged to. Then to use M . Clemens’s own words: “I want to authorize M . Pearmain now to decline for me all invitations, before they get a chance to reach me, for it will relieve us both of embarrassments.” and this he feels, that as his friend , you will be glad to do. M . Clemens is tired, but very well—and he wishes me to convey to you & to M . Pearmain, his very warm regards [MTP]. Note: J. Nelson Parker.
Isabel Lyon also wrote for Sam to decline J. Nelson Parker’s invitation; “he could not accept invitations that take him so far from his home” [MTP].
Sam also replied to Louise Forsslund’s Nov. 25 query that it “Must have been some other Clemens—never W. of Miss. until middle of 1861” [MTP].