January 11 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam declined an invitation from an unidentified man, giving the reason that “I have made all the engagements for this year that I can keep” [MTP].

Sam also sent a telegram to Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Lilian W. Aldrich in Boston: “A happy voyage and a quick return” [MTP].

Clemens’ A.D. for this day involved a Jan. 3 letter from Laura K. Hudson and his reply of Jan. 12 concerning his Dec. 17, 1877 Whittier birthday “debacle” [AMT 1: 260-267].

Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “Mr. Clemens “Yes I was on the Pacific Coast from Aug. 1861 to Oct. 1866.” He was getting ready for dictation. Then after luncheon I took him a little poem written by Carolone Stern of Greenville, Miss. After reading it to himself and being deeply moved by it, he walked the floor and standing near me read aloud the first verse of it.

“Who speaks of care, of toil, of time? The night-wind cools the heated deck,
The minstrel river sings in rhyme,
And gathers largesse in our wake.
And like a refrain, solemn, slow,
The leadsman’s chant comes from below—
Ma-a-r-rk Twa-a-ain—”

His voice trilled as he gave the leadsman’s call—but turning quickly he said, “There ought to be an echoing cry from the deck.”

Oh, the richness of his nature, and his brain and his soul. He sounds the awfulest depths of the tragedies of earth and heaven and hell—he bubbles over with gaity—he melts with grief into silent sobs—he slays with satire your beliefs—he boils over into profanities that make you feel the terrors of the thunderbolts that must come—and he is the gentlest, most considerate, most lovable creature in all the earth—yet how he covers his true self away from most! [MTP TS 8- 9; also Gribben 662, in part].

About this day Sam wrote to Jean, as seen in this paraphrase of Jean’s diary, vol. 6, Jan. 14:

I wrote Father a letter yesterday, that I regret just a little having sent. In the letter I received from him [ca. Jan 11; not extant], he spoke of my sweet & gentle child-spirit that had been inspired by my illness, & urged me to try & get it back again. Also, he urged patience toward Anna and the people in the house with instructions that the doctors all meant well toward me etc. As a whole, the letter was sweet, but the statement of my having been born with a sweet nature surprised me [MTP].

George H. Daniels for the Lotos Club wrote to announce a dinner for Woodrow Wilson of Princeton, Univ. on Saturday evening, Feb. 3, inviting Sam to “say a few words” [MTP].

Samuel O. Prentice wrote to Sam on Supreme Court of Errors, Hartford, Conn. letterhead, vouching for Arthur M. Marsh, Bridgeport attorney and president of the Contemporary Club of that city. Marsh wished to interview Sam about speaking to their club [MTP].