Submitted by scott on
February 25 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Late last night—midnight & after—I sat here cutting Harper’s magazine for Mark & came across a beautiful little poem by Mildred Howells. I took it to Mr. Clemens this morning, he read it aloud to me & then cut it out of the magazine. This afternoon when Witter Bynner was here for tea, Mr. Clemens read it aloud again saying that he had wasted a whole chapter to say what she had said in a few lines & then as he paced the room he talked a little bit about the power of poetry to convey our thoughts in fittest form. Witter Bynner then recited a little poem of his own which is to appear shortly in McClures. It, too, is very beautiful, & is another summing up of a life problem. He is a magnetic creature.

At half past four Mr. & Mrs. Paine & their 3 lovely children, Louise, aged 11, a little poetess, Frances, aged 7, and tiny Joy, aged 3 came in for tea. [on separate sheet of paper dated Feb. 25—an incident; see this placed for Feb. 24:] [MTP TS 35-36].

Note: Witter Bynner (1881-1968), poet, and writer. Bynner was a 1902 Harvard graduate and later became friends with D.H. Lawrence. Bynner lived for three decades in New Mexico, where he threw parties for famous people.

At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, now in Atlantic City, N.J. at the St. Charles Hotel.

Miss Lyon brought to me, this morning, Mildred’s poem, in the March Harper; & its depth, & dignity, & pathos, & compression, & fluent grace & hearty—and stern veracity—have haunted me all day & sung in the ears of my spirit like a strain of solemn music. What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! It cost me several chapters to say in prose what Mildred has said better with a single penfull of ink. Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash.  

This evening I went out to 59 street to read the masterly poem to my brilliant niece, Mrs. Julie Langdon Loomis, who is a daft admirer of yours & student of Silas Lapham & others of your books; but I had my journey for nothing, for of course I left the poem in my other vest. And a pity, too, & I cursed myself.

Clara is grateful to you, & very properly sorry & ashamed for letting you run all over that place in search of comfortable quarters for her. I gave her a scolding, but of course that didn’t undo her evil work. / With love to you both …. [MTHL 2: 800-801]. Note: source gives clarifying notes: Mildred Howells’ poem was “At the Wind’s Will,” which “figured human beings as autumn leaves driven by chance winds,” an idea that would find agreement with Clemens.  Sam was working ont What Is Man? which he was to have printed privately in August. Clara Clemens was also in Atlantic City, at the Brighton Hotel, confined to bed by an illness.

Patrick McAleer, longtime servant for the Clemens family, died at the age of 60 in Hartford. Sam would attend Patrick’s funeral. In his Mar. 4 speech at the YMCA, Sam called Patrick “my ideal of an ideal gentleman” [MTHL 2: 802n2].  

Sam wrote to Robert Fraser Standen (Stander?) in Dover, England. This letter not extant but mentioned in Standen’s Mar. 23, 1907 letter [MTP].

Duffield Osborne wrote for the Authors Club to invite Sam to a reception for Norman Hapgood on Mar. 15 at 9 pm  [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the bottom of the letter: “That date is to me quite impossible as I have got to be in Washington.”

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.