January 17 Wednesday – Sam attended a meeting to form an association for a 1907 centennial of Robert Fulton’s Claremont. The New York Times, Jan. 18, p. 8, “For a Monument to Fulton” reported the presence of Mark Twain. On Feb. 18, the Times, under the same heading, reported Samuel L. Clemens as an “incorporator”and printed his letter of acceptance to the committee:
Mr. Clemens, in accepting membership on the committee, wrote the following letter:
I am sure that but for his genius and energy steam navigation would have remained in the egg centuries longer than it did. He made the vacant oceans and the idle rivers useful after the unprejudiced had been wondering for a hundred million years what they were for. He found these properties a liability; he left them an asset. It is the peculiar honor and privilege of our commercializing age to estimate this majestic service at its splendid and rightful value. The monument is deserved, and it will be built. MARK TWAIN.
Clemens’ A.D. for this day discussed Sam’s past efforts to convince publishers of the viability of a magazine dealing with older articles, The Back Number. He then told of General Sickles, of his renown and of Joe Twichell’s regard for Sickles, having been in Sickle’s regiment in the Civil War [AMT 1: 287-292].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
This morning a Miss Jonas, a southerner, came with a letter of introduction from E.C. Stedman. She had a little poem she had written, a negro mother’s tragic cry over the lynching of her son. I took it up and interrupted Mr. Clemens in his dictating, for Miss Jonas wants Mary Shaw to recite it at the Tuskegee meeting on the 22nd. Mr. Clemens said “Oh give it to me now, now is always the best time to do things,” and he read it with his great feeling, making a wonderful poem of it.
The morning mail brought a little book—a sermon by Minot J. Savage, sent by the publisher. Mr. Clemens stroked the soft leather binding & said it was “just the thing to sharpen my razor on,” so the publisher has done a good deed after all.
The young receiving tellers at the Knickerbocker Trust Co. have been uncivil to me and to others of this family. I spoke of the matter to Mr. Clemens. He as going up to a meeting of the Robert Fulton Memorial Assn. At the Waldorf this afternoon and said he’d take me in to see the President of the Trust Co. Mr. Brown, the President was very busy telephoning, so we had to wait. Mr. Clemens said to me, “He’s got some kind of a catfish on the end of that line and he can’t land him or shake him” [MTP TS 13-14]. See also Gribben 358, 605.
Mr. Clemens, in accepting membership on the committee, wrote the following letter:
I am sure that but for his genius and energy steam navigation would have remained in the egg centuries longer than it did. He made the vacant oceans and the idle rivers useful after the unprejudiced had been wondering for a hundred million years what they were for. He found these properties a liability; he left them an asset. It is the peculiar honor and privilege of our commercializing age to estimate this majestic service at its splendid and rightful value. The monument is deserved, and it will be built. MARK TWAIN.
Clemens’ A.D. for this day discussed Sam’s past efforts to convince publishers of the viability of a magazine dealing with older articles, The Back Number. He then told of General Sickles, of his renown and of Joe Twichell’s regard for Sickles, having been in Sickle’s regiment in the Civil War [AMT 1: 287-292].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
This morning a Miss Jonas, a southerner, came with a letter of introduction from E.C. Stedman. She had a little poem she had written, a negro mother’s tragic cry over the lynching of her son. I took it up and interrupted Mr. Clemens in his dictating, for Miss Jonas wants Mary Shaw to recite it at the Tuskegee meeting on the 22nd. Mr. Clemens said “Oh give it to me now, now is always the best time to do things,” and he read it with his great feeling, making a wonderful poem of it.
The morning mail brought a little book—a sermon by Minot J. Savage, sent by the publisher. Mr. Clemens stroked the soft leather binding & said it was “just the thing to sharpen my razor on,” so the publisher has done a good deed after all.
The young receiving tellers at the Knickerbocker Trust Co. have been uncivil to me and to others of this family. I spoke of the matter to Mr. Clemens. He as going up to a meeting of the Robert Fulton Memorial Assn. At the Waldorf this afternoon and said he’d take me in to see the President of the Trust Co. Mr. Brown, the President was very busy telephoning, so we had to wait. Mr. Clemens said to me, “He’s got some kind of a catfish on the end of that line and he can’t land him or shake him” [MTP TS 13-14]. See also Gribben 358, 605.
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