July 13 Saturday – The Pall Mall Gazette, announced the leaving of Mark Twain.
Mark Twain leaves us to-day, and has issued a kindly farewell message. He has had, he says, the most enjoyable holiday of his life, and is younger now by seven years than he was when he arrived. “If I could stay another month, I could make it fourteen,” he says delightfully; but in any case, after planning his funeral for some time past, he has changed his mind and postponed it. On our side, we are sorry that he is going, because he might have continued to jest for another month without being at all wearisome. There is a sort of breezy morality about his valetudinarianisms. They suggest the happiness of facing hard facts with serenity, and are quite of a piece with all his gay philosophy; for Mr. Clemens’s humour, apart from his earliest books of large buffoonery, may be strictly defined as the playfulness of common sense. May there be no reaction after the “violently gay and energetic life” of this farewell trip [July 13, p.2, “Mark Twain’s Good-bye”].
Sam and Ralph W. Ashcroft sailed for America on the S.S. Minnetonka [MTHHR 626n1].
Paine writes of Sam’s departure:
He sailed on July 13th for home, besought to the last moment by a crowd of autograph-seekers and reporters and photographers, and a multitude who only wished to see him and to shout and wave good-by. He was sailing away from them for the last time. They hoped he would make a speech, but that would not have been possible. To the reporters he gave a farewell message:
“It has been the most enjoyable holiday I have ever had, and I am sorry the end of it has come. I have met a hundred, old friends, and I have made a hundred new ones. It is a good kind of riches to have; there is none better, I think.” And the London Tribune declared that “the ship that bore him away had difficulty in getting clear, so thickly was the water strewn with the bay- leaves of his triumph. For Mark Twain has triumphed, and in his all-too-brief stay of a month has done more for the cause of the world’s peace than will be accomplished by the Hague Conference. He has made the world laugh again.”
His ship was the Minnetonka, and there were some little folks aboard to be adopted as grandchildren. On July 15th, in a fog, the Minnetonka collided with the bark Sterling, and narrowly escaped sinking her. On the whole, however, the homeward way was clear, and the vessel reached New York nearly a day in advance of their schedule. Some ceremonies of welcome had been prepared for him; but they were upset by the early arrival, so that when he descended the gang-plank to his native soil only a few who had received special information were there to greet him. But perhaps he did not notice it. He seldom took account of the absence of such things. By early afternoon, however, the papers rang with the announcement that Mark Twain was home again [MTB 1403].
Sometime during the voyage (July 13 to July 22) Sam inscribed a copy of The Jumping Frog to Robert Bell: “To / Mr. Robert Bell / S.S. Minnetonka/ with the compliments & best wishes / of / Mark Twain / July 13/22, 1907.” [MTP].
Harper’s Weekly ran an anonymous article, “Mark Twain, Doctor of Letters,” p.1010. Tenney: “Editorial comment on MT’s honorary Oxford degree, awarded not just because he is a celebrity, but because he is an able and recognized author.” The sams issue also printed a photograph with the caption: “Mark Twain, En Route for Oxford to Receive the Degree of Doctor of Letters, Besieged by Reporters on His Steamship in England” without commentary, p. 1034 [43].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight dear Mother came in as I was dusting books in the Library, and it was fine to see her and to have her looking so well. It was terribly hot, so we drove in the park in a Victoria and it was a delight….
Today the King sailed from England. He comes away with a mighty cargo of love—English love and now that I’m in my old tracks again I have a feeling that I’m living again [MTP 83].
Paddy Madden wrote (after July 13) from America to Sam, “Cannot tell you how delighted I was to receive the postal cards. They are perfectly beautiful…how highly I prize them” [MTP].
Thomas Power O’Connor sent a telegram to Sam, S.S. Minnetonka: “Goodbye God bless you Taypay” [MTP].