February 10 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Thomas S. Barbour, confiding the results of his last conference with the Secretary of State:
I am so busy with other matters that I have failed to tell you of my visit to M . Bacon in Washington a week ago. He & M . [Elihu] Root have been making a searching examination among the Department’s archives with this resultant verdict: our Government is so entirely outside of the Congo matter that it could by no means initiate a move in it, nor even second a move made by one or all of the other Governments concerned, without laying itself open to the danger of undiplomatic intrusion. As I understood M . Bacon this was the view left on record in the Department by John Hay after an examination of the matter.
The strength of the Reform movement in America lay in the apparent fact that our Government was one of the responsible parties and therefore could be persuaded to come forward and do its duty. The above verdict relieves it and sets it free. I think it most unlikely that it will ever throw away the pleasant advantages of that verdict [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Andrew Carnegie.
The whisky arrived in due course from over the water; last week one bottle of it was extracted from the wood & inserted into me, on the instalment plan, with this result: that I believe it to be the best & smoothest whiskey now on the planet. Thanks, oh, thanks; I have discarded Peruna. Hoping that you three are well & happy & will be coming back before the winter sets in … [MTP].
Sam also replied to the Jan. 29 from D. Ceall. “I thank you; for I resemble Carlyle & all other men in this: that the approving word is very welcome to me. If ever Carlyle’s energy of language was ever an offense to me, it must have been in a long-past & forgotten time; I shouldn’t be able to find fault with it now”[MTP].
Frank Fuller wrote to Sam.
My Ever Dear Mark: My darling wife dropped asleep forever at just 6 o’clock this morning and I am all alone.
I was compelled to come down here for a few minutes & so I am rewarded with your sweet note thorugh Miss Lyon.
We shall take the dear one to Portsmouth where she was born [MTP]. Note: Fuller thanked Sam for his visit, that it had meant so much to his wife, Livy’s friend and intimate. “Her life went out without a moment’s notice & I could not say goodbye! So went our sweethearts, Mark, so went the light of our lives into the endless unknown. Faithfully yours.”
Sam replied to Frank Fuller: “I am so glad dear Fuller, so glad I made that visit; & so sorry the rush & turmoil of life prevented my repeating it. I have words of sorrow for you, but not for her: how blessed are the dead, how fortunate are the dead. Ever your friend” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Mr. Grant came in this afternoon and after talking with me about Mrs. Peabody who had applied to Mr. Clemens for aid, and in whose behalf I had telephoned to Mr. Grant, he went up to talk with Mr. Clemens. After dinner Mr. Clemens told me that when Mr. Grant returns from Boston at the end of a week he is going to take Mr. Clemens to the Hippodrome. Mr. Clemens has been wanting to go, for there is a great spectacular scene which is beautiful, we are told.
Today the beautiful Barnett photograph arrived from England and it is for me. For 3 years I have longed for one, and as I grow older I marvel more and more over the fact that anything I long for with a strong steady silent desire, comes to me in time. It never fails [MTP TS 28]. Note: over the first paragraph above there are three diagonal lines, as if the paragraph was stricken.
Her journal about this day on Feb. 11: Yesterday [Feb. 10] after the portrait sitting Mr. Clemens and I went over to the hospital to see Teresa. She was so happy to see the Signor Padrone, & the pale face brightened; but we couldn’t stay long for a little girl suffering from heart disease made Mr. Clemens own gentle heart ache so that we had to leave. [in left margin: The little girl died that night, 4 days later the head nurse told me that as she was dying, blood spurted from her lips upon the nurse’s gown and she murmured “Excuse me.”] He is so thoughtful & feared that the unlighted cigar he carried would make the little creature ill, but the nurse in charge said, “No”, she wouldn’t notice it and so we came home through the snowy streets, the coupe having to go slowly [TS 18]. Note: See Feb. 11 for the entry relevant to that day.
Ida Benfey Judd wrote from 1 W. 87 , NYC, to Sam. She referred to his prior permission through Frank Bliss, to use parts of FE in a comedy presentation. Now she was planning a trilogy of Biblical stories about Job and Joseph and asked Sam if she could come and tell them to him. Would he be a patron? She’d already enlisted Felix Adler, John Burroughs, Bronson Howard, Mary E. Wilkins, Ida M. Tarbell and a few others [MTP]. Note: source says this may be 1906 or 1907.
Abbott Handerson Thayer wrote to Sam about the peace and quiet of his Dublin house, and how it all made him reflect on life, Sam’s 70 birthday, and how thankful he was for “Mark Twain’s existence” [MTP].
Harper’s Weekly published “When Mark Twain Lectured” by W.H. Merrill, p. 199, 209. Tenney: “Describes an MT lecture ‘in the early seventies…in a thriving village in western New York” [42].
Collier’s Weekly published “Lincoln Farm Association” [Camfield’s bibliog.].
I am so busy with other matters that I have failed to tell you of my visit to M . Bacon in Washington a week ago. He & M . [Elihu] Root have been making a searching examination among the Department’s archives with this resultant verdict: our Government is so entirely outside of the Congo matter that it could by no means initiate a move in it, nor even second a move made by one or all of the other Governments concerned, without laying itself open to the danger of undiplomatic intrusion. As I understood M . Bacon this was the view left on record in the Department by John Hay after an examination of the matter.
The strength of the Reform movement in America lay in the apparent fact that our Government was one of the responsible parties and therefore could be persuaded to come forward and do its duty. The above verdict relieves it and sets it free. I think it most unlikely that it will ever throw away the pleasant advantages of that verdict [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Andrew Carnegie.
The whisky arrived in due course from over the water; last week one bottle of it was extracted from the wood & inserted into me, on the instalment plan, with this result: that I believe it to be the best & smoothest whiskey now on the planet. Thanks, oh, thanks; I have discarded Peruna. Hoping that you three are well & happy & will be coming back before the winter sets in … [MTP].
Sam also replied to the Jan. 29 from D. Ceall. “I thank you; for I resemble Carlyle & all other men in this: that the approving word is very welcome to me. If ever Carlyle’s energy of language was ever an offense to me, it must have been in a long-past & forgotten time; I shouldn’t be able to find fault with it now”[MTP].
Frank Fuller wrote to Sam.
My Ever Dear Mark: My darling wife dropped asleep forever at just 6 o’clock this morning and I am all alone.
I was compelled to come down here for a few minutes & so I am rewarded with your sweet note thorugh Miss Lyon.
We shall take the dear one to Portsmouth where she was born [MTP]. Note: Fuller thanked Sam for his visit, that it had meant so much to his wife, Livy’s friend and intimate. “Her life went out without a moment’s notice & I could not say goodbye! So went our sweethearts, Mark, so went the light of our lives into the endless unknown. Faithfully yours.”
Sam replied to Frank Fuller: “I am so glad dear Fuller, so glad I made that visit; & so sorry the rush & turmoil of life prevented my repeating it. I have words of sorrow for you, but not for her: how blessed are the dead, how fortunate are the dead. Ever your friend” [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Mr. Grant came in this afternoon and after talking with me about Mrs. Peabody who had applied to Mr. Clemens for aid, and in whose behalf I had telephoned to Mr. Grant, he went up to talk with Mr. Clemens. After dinner Mr. Clemens told me that when Mr. Grant returns from Boston at the end of a week he is going to take Mr. Clemens to the Hippodrome. Mr. Clemens has been wanting to go, for there is a great spectacular scene which is beautiful, we are told.
Today the beautiful Barnett photograph arrived from England and it is for me. For 3 years I have longed for one, and as I grow older I marvel more and more over the fact that anything I long for with a strong steady silent desire, comes to me in time. It never fails [MTP TS 28]. Note: over the first paragraph above there are three diagonal lines, as if the paragraph was stricken.
Her journal about this day on Feb. 11: Yesterday [Feb. 10] after the portrait sitting Mr. Clemens and I went over to the hospital to see Teresa. She was so happy to see the Signor Padrone, & the pale face brightened; but we couldn’t stay long for a little girl suffering from heart disease made Mr. Clemens own gentle heart ache so that we had to leave. [in left margin: The little girl died that night, 4 days later the head nurse told me that as she was dying, blood spurted from her lips upon the nurse’s gown and she murmured “Excuse me.”] He is so thoughtful & feared that the unlighted cigar he carried would make the little creature ill, but the nurse in charge said, “No”, she wouldn’t notice it and so we came home through the snowy streets, the coupe having to go slowly [TS 18]. Note: See Feb. 11 for the entry relevant to that day.
Ida Benfey Judd wrote from 1 W. 87 , NYC, to Sam. She referred to his prior permission through Frank Bliss, to use parts of FE in a comedy presentation. Now she was planning a trilogy of Biblical stories about Job and Joseph and asked Sam if she could come and tell them to him. Would he be a patron? She’d already enlisted Felix Adler, John Burroughs, Bronson Howard, Mary E. Wilkins, Ida M. Tarbell and a few others [MTP]. Note: source says this may be 1906 or 1907.
Abbott Handerson Thayer wrote to Sam about the peace and quiet of his Dublin house, and how it all made him reflect on life, Sam’s 70 birthday, and how thankful he was for “Mark Twain’s existence” [MTP].
Harper’s Weekly published “When Mark Twain Lectured” by W.H. Merrill, p. 199, 209. Tenney: “Describes an MT lecture ‘in the early seventies…in a thriving village in western New York” [42].
Collier’s Weekly published “Lincoln Farm Association” [Camfield’s bibliog.].
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