February 25 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
Your news about yourself in your letter of yesterday is exceedingly welcome, & tallies with what Anna said when she was here the other day.
Exodus the Shulamite never said a truer thing than when he said—“Wonders will never cease.” Last week Alice Day’s old tomcat Ben Hur had kittens—one basketful on a Saturday & another one next day; the very same day a sunspot twice the size of the United States appeared far away up in the remotest nor’west corner of the great disk & was at first mistaken for a fly; right on top of that came Washington’s birthday, when nobody was expecting it; & right on top of that, before you could get your breath, Tuesday fell on a Saturday, & then everybody was appalled & awe-stricken, & said Well I’m dam’d, & turned over a new leaf. If these marvels had happened in Caesar’s time it would have meant nothing less than the caving-in of the Universe; but in our late day it only meant that I was to fall on the ice yesterday & rupture my white pants & have to stand an hour with my back to the wall at Mrs. Professor Lord’s & help her receive 200 women & girls. I think it is wonderful, the way Nature can foretell events that way. It appears, now, that Ben Hur is booked for another basketful: I wonder what that forecasts? Heaven knows, we live in parlous times.
Jean, I did not overstate that shell-fragment incident because it didn’t need it: I perfectly understood what Lady Innes (who was not writing literature, but only a diary) had supposed she was saying.
D Hunt gives us a splendid report of your health in a letter to Miss Lyon. It is good news indeed.
I’m going to the Joan of Arc matinèe now, but not in white [MTP]. Note: in his Mar. 5 to Jean he wrote that he didn’t fall on the ice but only said he did. Lady Sarah Innes (Hodges) (1737- 1770), subject of a portrait by Gainsborough.
Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Candace Wheeler: “Mr. Clemens expects to be there. Thank her for her most dear & welcome letter” [MTP]. Note: Sam had written daughter Clara that he was going to Candace Wheeler’s on Feb. 28.
Lyon also wrote for Sam to Harriet E. Whitmore, inviting the Whitmores to visit the following week, Monday the 4 or “any time during the week & stay …a few days” [MTP]. Note: they stayed three days in March.
On Feb. 25 or 26 Sam replied to the Feb. 21 invitation from Emil Leopold Boas, head of the Hamburg-American Line in America. “It is very enticing but duty requires me to stay here, therwise I would be one of your passengers./ With pleasant remembrance of that long-ago dinner….” [MTP]. Note: the dinner has not been dated.
Theodore E. Busfield pastor, First Congregational Church, N. Adams, Mass. wrote to Sam. “The Ladies’ Aid Society of my church has been fortunate enough to arrange with your daughter for her appearance here next Monday evening in a concert recital, and there is a very general desire to have you…introduce her” [MTP]. Note: Lyon: “No Ans”
Effie F. Cutting (Mrs. C.H. Cutting) wrote from N. Adams, Mass. to urge Sam to come to the Monday evening concert at which Clara would perform [MTP].
Albert B. Paine wrote to Miss Lyon: “I am glad the King said that—gladder still that he can think it. His good opinion is very precious to me. I must try to deserve it” [MTP].
In Sam’s A.D. he quoted the N.Y. Sun’s account of “three or four days ago” about the shipwreck of the Berlin [Gribben 505].