August 3 Saturday – John and Clara (nee Spaulding) Stanchfield visited Sam in Tuxedo Park, and stayed over through Sunday [New York Times, Aug. 4, p.7, “Tuxedo Park News”].
In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Joseph Hodges Chaote, ambassador to Great Britain, about speaking at the Sept. 23 Jamestown celebration of Robert Fulton inventing the steam boat.
Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, President of the Robert Fulton Monument Fund, has by this tiem invited you to be the Orator & guest of the Fair & Fund on Robert Fulton Day (Sept. 23), & we of the Fund are hoping you will be through at the Hague & will be able to accept.
In which case I, the Vice President, beg that you & Mrs. Choate will be my guests in the matter of transportation to the Fair & back. Mr. H. H. Rogers has placed the swift Kanawha under my orders, & also his son Harry, who will act as my Executive Officer & super-intend the Captain of the ship. And—incidentally—pay the bills.
Harry’s charming young wife will be the only guest beside yourselves. There will be rooms for you & Mrs. Choate, & a room for Mrs. Choate’s maid.
Commodore Vanderbilt will command the yacht-squadron escort. The King’s Cup race & the President’s Cup race will take place on the first & second days; there’ll be a ball for you at that Old Point Comfort Hotel, & a banquet for you at the same place—by General Grant. There’s going to be inebriousness, & general dissipation, & a Halifax of a time. I am hoping that this prospect will excite you & Mrs. Choate & make it easy for you to accept my invitation.
We shall sail about noon, Sept. 22 & arrive off the Fair at 8 next morning, parading in full force & properly beflagged, down between the battleships.
And we’ll re-sail for New York whenever you say—the very next day, if such shall be your pleasure.
Unto the two of you, homage, salutation, & the piece of God! / SL. Clemens [MTP: eBay June 7, 1999; also Liveauctioneers.com Feb. 12, 2006 Lot 864]. Note: Major General Frederick D. Grant, son of Ulysses S. Grant.
Sam also wrote an aphorism to Lady Campbell Clarke: “To / Lady Campbell Clarke / greeting & salutation— / and these, to wit: / Let us save the tomorrows for work. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / New York, Aug. 3/07.” [MTP: Sotheby’s, London catalogs, Dec. 18, 1995, Item 171].
Sam also wrote to Frances Nunnally.
Dear Francesca: if you sail Sept. 14 in the Minnewhatyoumaycallem you are due to reach New York on the 23d, which is the day after I sail for the Jamestown Fair. I may have to be absent 4 or 5 days—I can’t tell yet.
When you arrive will you telephone or telegraph your address To R. W. Ashcroft, The Kay-lo Co, 11 Broadway and to S. L. Clemens, Tuxedo Park —so that Ashcroft or Miss Lyon can let me know at Old Point Comfort,Va.
This because we have shut up 21-Fifth ave till November, put it on the General Burglar Alarm, over the telephone wires, & brought the servants here. So there will be no one there to answer a message, not even a care-taker.
I don’t know how to reach you, but I will try by way of Atlanta & take the chances.
I hope you & your mother are well. / Affectionately … [MTP].
Howells & Stokes wrote to Sam with details of progress on the Redding house [MTP].
Roi Cooper Megrue for Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Lyon about “The Death Disk” drama [MTP].
Frances Nunnally wrote from Brown’s Hotel, London to Sam.
By now I suppose you have become entirely rested from all the festivities you had over here, and I do not doubt but that you were very glad to get home, where you could find rest from luncheons, dinners, and such things. I hope you had a pleasant and smooth voyage over, and if the weather on sea was anything like it was over here the week you sailed, I am sure you did. I hear that the “Minnetonka” had a collision with a sailing vessel, but I was very glad to know that nothing serious came of it. I think if nobody was hurt, I should rather like the excitement of having such an accident. ….
Hoping that you have not forgotten your engagement at St. Timothy’s next fall, I am / with love
/ Francesca [MTP].
Alfred F. Symons wrote from Port Elizabeth, S. Africa to Sam:
Dear Mr. Clemens, / I muchly wish to add my congratulations to the man I suppose you have already received upon receiving the honorary degree at Oxford. I am a great admirer of your writings & have about 20 volumes by you on my shelf…As a great admirer of Republicanism I like “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur” best, though it is hard to choose between them….at a meeting of a society of Mutual Improvement we have here I am to give a paper or address on “Mark Twain” & I only hope I may be able to do justice to the admiration of yourself…I have just a recollection of seeing you walk on the beach at East London when I was a boy of 10 during your visit to S. Africa….[MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “This is a letter which after I answered it (in the usual form for Mr. Clemens) I cherished, for the writer interested me more than he did Mr. Clemens. But it was the letter which inspired his remarks about the appreciation of the Englishman of today, against the thin skinned Englishman [illegible word] skin was pricked uncomfortably at the time of the publication of the Yankee / Aug. 1907”