June 20 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
“There was a row in Silver Street”
Day after day Mr. Clemens is so harassed & tormented when he is reading the dictated matter by continually coming across Hobby blunders, & the worse one—the most exasperating one is where she invariably corrects Mr. Clemens’ writing “one thousand” or “one hundred” where he has said “a thousand”, or “a hundred”. Today it passed the limit of his endurance. Through his tightly shut teeth he damned that “hell-fired word” until he was tired; & then he went for “that idiot!”—“that devilish woman!” “I’d like to taker her out & have her scalped and gutted!”
It was such a joy to me to hear Mr. Clemens chuckle out from the living room while Jean & I were at luncheon: “There was a row in Silver Street; Be God I wonder why!” It follows morning discussions of a certain order, or disorder. I sat in my study this morning & listened to the dictating. It struck at the fundamental parts of the Christian creed & isn’t to be published for 500 years. Miss Hobby who has strained points in her wish for chaperones, won’t need one now I think, because discussion of the Immaculate Conception doesn’t leave much uncovered. Not if Mr. Clemens is doing the discussing which he did [MTP TS 86-87]. Note: Gribben p.699 gives the Silver Street line as a song.
Clemens’ A.D. this day included: The defects about Bibles—Remarks about the Immaculate Conception [MTP: Autodict2].
“There was a row in Silver Street”
Day after day Mr. Clemens is so harassed & tormented when he is reading the dictated matter by continually coming across Hobby blunders, & the worse one—the most exasperating one is where she invariably corrects Mr. Clemens’ writing “one thousand” or “one hundred” where he has said “a thousand”, or “a hundred”. Today it passed the limit of his endurance. Through his tightly shut teeth he damned that “hell-fired word” until he was tired; & then he went for “that idiot!”—“that devilish woman!” “I’d like to taker her out & have her scalped and gutted!”
It was such a joy to me to hear Mr. Clemens chuckle out from the living room while Jean & I were at luncheon: “There was a row in Silver Street; Be God I wonder why!” It follows morning discussions of a certain order, or disorder. I sat in my study this morning & listened to the dictating. It struck at the fundamental parts of the Christian creed & isn’t to be published for 500 years. Miss Hobby who has strained points in her wish for chaperones, won’t need one now I think, because discussion of the Immaculate Conception doesn’t leave much uncovered. Not if Mr. Clemens is doing the discussing which he did [MTP TS 86-87]. Note: Gribben p.699 gives the Silver Street line as a song.
Clemens’ A.D. this day included: The defects about Bibles—Remarks about the Immaculate Conception [MTP: Autodict2].
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