January 31 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam replied to Charles Alexander’s Jan. 29: .
The charges against Leopold are proven to the hilt by unimpeachable testimony. A small percentage of this vast mass of testimony is offered as a sample in King Leopold’s Soliloquy. In r the face of this formidable testimony what M . Wack or any other man may say in favor of Leopold is a matter of small consequence. There is not white wash enough on the planet to modify Leopold’s complexion. Leopold’s commission, a jury packed by himself, has confirmed & established the validity of the charges. This puts all the whitewashers out of commission [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Lowell C. Frost. “Your check has already gone to a charity which needs it, & which, for econ- onomic reasons, I had declined to contribute to, although it is on my annual list. I assure you I feel as good & benevolent & exemplary as if the money had come out of my own pocket” [MTP].
Sam also sent Mr. Gummere some standard wording to decline an invitation [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Duffield Osborne, secretary of the Authors Club: “Dear Sir: The recommendation to honorary membership affords me great gratification, & I beg to return my best thanks for it. I was not aware of the Club’s earlier action (of Nov. 17, 1896), or I should have made an acknowledgment of it” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Two or three days ago when Mr. Clemens and Col. Harvey were in Washington they called on Wayne MacVeagh with the object in view of trying to induce him to write his autobiography. Mr. MacV. said he couldn’t ever drive the pen again, it wouldn’t be possible. He has been in public life for 50 years and was as close to Lincoln as he was to Mr. Clemens when Lincoln made his famous Gettysburg speech, “and that was enough to make an autobiography go” Mr. Clemens said.
Mr. Clemens described to him his own joy in dictating his autobiography and suggested that he talk an hour a day to begin with and he’d soon see how easily he could slip along into two hours. And he said that even if Mr. MacVeagh is “seventy years old” he is still a very young man in spirit [MTP TS 20-21].
Laura K. Hudson wrote to thank Sam for his “very kind note and—later on—the promised copy of the old ‘Atlantic Monthly’…” [MTP].
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam, sorry to say that the news about Patrick McAleer was very bad. Patrick had been operated on and was deluded in thinking he would soon recover, but a nurse told Joe there was no hope; for his cancer of the liver [MTP].
January 31 ca. – Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to Phoebe Holmes’ Jan. 29: “Matter of no consequence. Really mustn’t trouble herself—it hasn’t troubled Mr. Clemens in the least degree” [MTP].