August – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote his aphorism about honors deserved to E.M. Bowney [MTP: Philip C. Duschnes catalogs, No. 183, Item 98].
On a Wednesday of this month in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Sam wrote to daughter Clara. “Oh, Clara dear, I am so sorry your surgery isn’t over, & so glad its is imminently next-door to it. I hope you will soon be complete & perfect. We are paying fine tribute when we spare Maggie to you, but we do it with love & without a pang. / With hugs & kisses & plenty of them / Father” [MTP].
Sam also signed a copy of The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple by Lady Dorothy Temple (Osborne) (1626-1694): “SL. Clemens / Tuxedo Park, / Aug. ‘07” [Gribben 691].
Dr. & Mrs. Gerrit S. Clemens of Joplin, Mo. visited Sam in Tuxedo Park. Mrs. Clemens mentioned the “pleasant visit” she and the doctor had at Tuxedo Park in August 1907 in her letter of Feb. 25, 1908 [MTP].
Samuel E. Moffett’s article, “Mark Twain, Doctor of Letters,” ran in Review of Reviews (NY), p. 167-8. Tenney: “General praise of MT on the occasion of his receiving an honoray degree from Oxford; no new information. Includes photograph of MT” [44].
Charles Whibley’s article, “Musings without Method: The Hilarity of London, etc.” ran in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, p. 279-86. Tenney: “A generally unsympathetic response to the adulation MT was receiving on his last visit to England; praises the beauty of LOM, but condemns CY as ‘such a masterpiece of vulgarity as the world has never seen. His book gives you the same sort of impression which you might receive from a beautiful picture over which a poisonous slug had crawled’” [45].
A.F. Bradley’s article, “Doctor Clemens,” ran in Current Literature, facing p.119: Tenney: “A photograph of MT, ‘made just before he sailed to England’ to receive an honorary degree from Oxford” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p. 334].
Current Literature ran an anonymous article, “Our Foremost Living American Writer,” p. 163- 5. Tenney: “A summary, with extensive quotation, of an appreciation by William Lyon Phelps; photograph: ‘Mark Twain in his Doctor’s Robes. A glimpse of the veteran humorist as he appeared in the streets of Oxford after receiving his degree’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 191].