June 30 Sunday – At Brown’s Hotel In London Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
Jean dear, I have had a lovely time every day of the fortnight since we arrived, with not a thing to mar its delights except speeches. I hate making speeches except when I have some which I really want to say—a thing which does not often happen. I enjoyed talking to the Pilgrims here th on the 25 & I enjoyed talking to the Rhodes scholars in Oxford night before last, but all the other speeches were cases of had-to—I don’t like that kind.
I prodigiously enjoyed every hour of my 3 days in Oxford. When we moved, gowned & mortar-boarded, in a single-file procession to the Sheldonian between solemn walls of the common people, their hearty welcome deeply touched me all the way, & brought back to my mind the welcome of the stevedores when I went ashore at Tilbury dock. I enjoyed the noisy welcome of the undergrads when the degrees were conferred—& I was privately very vain of the common remark that it was the largest one of the day—for I was born vain, & can’t seem to get over it.
I enjoyed all the fine old time-worn ceremonies, & the march back to All Souls, & the garden- party & the luncheon (ancient official name of it “gaudy,”) & also the other gaudies of the succeeding nights & days—except the having to make speeches.
And then the pageant! But nobody can describe that. I saw two days of it, & it was far & away the most superb spectacle of massed & mighty and rhythmical movement & splendid costumes I have ever seen. Of the dramatis personae there were 3,500 men & women & boys & girls; & the pictures they made when they came marching out of the noble distances like gliding far-off flower-gardens, & came pouring down out of the forest trees, hundreds on foot & hundreds on horseback & lit up all the grassy stretches with kaleidoscopic [one word canceled] movement & color, made all the grand opera’s efforts at the spectacular seem poor & small & cheap & fictitious. And then the final scene, when the whole 3,500 were present & mingling, marching before us—well, it was a fairy dream!
I was out late, last night, at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, & must be out late again, on the 4 th of July & at Punch’s dinner to me (July 8 [actually July 9] ) & at the Lord Mayor’s dinner to me
t(Liverpool, July 10) but all my other engagements are daylight ones & will not fatigue me. The Viceroy of Ireland (Lord Aberdeen, you may remember him) has invited me to Dublin, to be his guest, & I do wish I could go, but I can’t; I haven’t a vacant moment till I sail (July 13, in the Minne-something,—Minnetonka, I think.)
I am glad I came, dearheart, very glad indeed.
Goodbye, with love & kisses— / Father [MTP]. Note: Afer his signature he asked her to send the letter to Clara as he had run out of time; yet he did find the time to write the following letter.
Sam also wrote to daughter Clara in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
Clärchen dear, I wrote Jean this morning about the wonderful pageant at Oxford, and asked her to send you the letter. There was an overlooked detail which I wish to speak of. I will precede it with the remark. The 3,500 men, women and children who acted in the living pictures reproduced historical episodes of ancient times which all took place within a couple of miles of where we sat looking on, & some of them on that very spot itself—a lovely meadow with a little river winding around it & surrounded by far-reaching park-vistas & glimpsed it through stately forest trees. Through all the turmoil of the vivid medieval day the birds flew all about us singing undismayed, &the swans paddled up & down unconcerned by the state-barges leaving kings, & war-barges bearing pirate-raids of the legendary days. It was just too touching for anything!
The episodes began with A. D. 710; then 1110; then 1284; then 1521; then 1587; then 1607; then 1641; then 1686; then 1790; then 1810. The costumes were historically exact, to the last detail. Imagine the limitless variety!
And now I arrive at what I started out to say: all the 3,500 were people living in Oxford. At 2 p.m. daily they all swarmed out, in costume, & started for the meadow, outside the town, & went loafing down the quaint old lanes & streets of the venerable city—& dear me they did harmonise with the quaint & mouldy old buildings to perfection! Once I turned a corner & came suddenly upon an ecclesiastic of AD 710 & up went his two fingers in prelatic blessing, as he called me by name & made me welcome to his long-vanished day; & I met Charles I in the same way—oh, Charles to the life! And he also was cordial. And James I, & Henry VIII, & Friar Bacon, & no end of others— I came upon them everywhere, & always it was a charming & a thrilling surprise.
With ever/ so much love & kisses / Father [MTP].
Insert Cartoon: June 29, p. 1, Duluth News Tribune (Minn.)
Ashcroft’s note: “Sunday, June 30th. Dined with Sir Gilbert and Lady Parker” [MTFWE 79]. Note: Sam’s A.D. of Aug. 17, 1907 he wrote of the dinner, and of a later one on this day:
It was a large company, with a sprinkling of titles, and also with a sprinkling of men and women distinguished for achievement; but the whole scene is abolished from my memory by one wonderful face, just as the stars sparkling upon the horizon are swallowed up in the glory of the rising sun and extinguished. I am referring in this prodigious way to the face of a young woman. By the figure which I have used I have intended to indicate that this young creature’s beauty was of the sort which is called dazzling; it is the right word; that face dazzled all the other faces to extinction….Lady—Lady something—but the name has gone from me; names and faces will not stay with me; that name has departed, but I should know the face again anywhere. The style was English, the features were English, the character was English, the dignity was English—all high-born English; but over it all, and pervading it and suffusing it with that subtle something which we call charm, was a friendly and outreaching good fellowship and an easy and natural and unstudied grace of manner and carriage which is American—rare everywhere, and infrequent, but most frequent among our people, I think. I explained to her what I thought of her, and said England ought to be proud of such a product; but she smiled like a complimented angel, and rippled out a musical little laugh, and said she was an American product and destitute of English blood.
It was a very pleasant surprise. Later, at another dinner party, this pleasant surprise was repeated, where I mistook a couple of titled American ladies for English women….These ladies had been living in England five years, and one cannot remain so long in an unaccustomed atmosphere without taking color from it.
There was talk of that soaring and brilliant young statesman, Winston Churchill, son of Lord Randolph Churchill and nephew of a duke. I had met him at Sir Gilbert Parker’s seven years before…[MTFWE 79: MTAD Aug. 17, 1907].
The N.Y. Herald ran Sam’s reply to A.P. Macdonald’s June 20 & 22:
I have found time by stealing it from sleep to umpire the first four “squabbles,” and I find them fine both in spirit and in workmanship and just to my taste [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal (at sea): Foggy all day, but smooth and we slept through all the noise of the stokers and the one who swore at them as they came up from below. We are close to the engine room and we are sitting on the foghorn which does not shake us to pieces only because we are limp from fatigue. The people are uninteresting, very. Santa says, “They look as if they were obliged to come—as if they were on their way to take up a bookkeeping job.” The captain, Clark, is not interesting, either
Henry Dyke Aeland wrote from Oxford that he understood Sam was anxious to have his funeral “conducted in the same manner as that of Amy Robsant in the Pageant here,” and that it would be his honor to follow Sam’s directions to “fill the Roll of Lancaster Herald at your obsequies as I am now doing in Amy Robsants …” [MTP].
Oliver Bainbridge wrote from Holland Park, W. “I am grateful for your kind letter and shall drop in next Tuesday morning at 11.45” [MTP].
R. Byrne wrote from Royal Hospital, Chelsea to “chide” Sam for getting home so late one night. “You promised to be good, when we invited you over and gave you a degree, & endeavored thereby, to make a respectable man of you, and what do we find? Read the enclosed cutting [not in file], you really should be more careful. They close the pubs here at 12…” [MTP].
John Henniker Heaton wrote on Carleton Club stationery. “You may find time to read page 27 and page 30 of the accompanying Red Book on Penny (2 cent) postage between America and England / If you will write some little masterpiece on this subject, in your own inimitable style, and in your own way it will do more than tons of memoranda and [illegible word] Blue books to carry the great reform” [MTP].
M.S. Jersey wrote a short note of invitation for Clemens to dine with them [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter: “Declined”
Sidney Lee wrote small on a small card that he had “friends looking forward with delight to your dining with me tomorrow (Monday) night at 8 o’clock at the Garrick Club” [MTP].
Julian Moore wrote to suggest that before Sam left England “there are many who would be grateful” if he gave “at least one public lecture, but better of course several.” He suggested Mrs. Eddy or King Leopold as possible subjects [MTP].
Edmund D. Morel wrote from Hawarden, still lobbying for Twain to say something on the Congo questions, possibly in his visit to Liverpool [MTP].
Muriel M. Pears wrote from London, bemoaning “what a hard thing it will be to me if you return home without my having seen you.” But she was reading all the papers and collecting all the clippings. She asked for an hour for lunch [MTP].
Mrs. I.B. Simpson wrote from The Birches, Fleet, England. She had tried not to write but gave in. Seven years before Clemens had answered her letter asking his opinion of the S. African war. She enclosed his old letter and asked that it might be returned. Thanks for the “many happy hours your writings have given me” [MTP].
Henry M. Wells wrote from Thorncliffe near Manchester to ask for a NY Lawyer who might represent him in a copyright matter in his plans to establish a weekly journal there [MTP].
C. Louis de Wolff for Dickens Birthplace Fellowship wrote a postcard and a letter. The letter advised he’d sent yesterday’s copy of the Portsmouth Times concerning a Memorial to Charles Dickens. The card: “Many thanks for your letter. But isn’t there a little misunderstanding? We never imagined that Mr. Clemens could give us any personal help, but it he would give a little subscription (say half a guinea only) it would permanently identify him with this Memorial…” [MTP].