September 1 Sunday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Albert Langen.

Mein lieber Herr: / Im namen Gottes (if that is echte Deutch), do please continue those admirable pictures, “Nach alten Meistern.” I have never liked St. Sebastian before, but this time he is a deep satisfaction to me. I have always had an aversion for the Mona Lisa before, but I think this one is just a Darling. She is gone, now, to be framed. With many thanks, I am / Truly Yours …. [MTP]. Note: What Sam approved of was a caricature of Mona Lisa in the German humor magazine, Simplicissimus ; See IVL’s Journal item at bottom of this entry.  

Sam also wrote to Joseph Pulitzer, upset about a fake “interview” published in the N.Y World.

 Dear Mr. Pulitzer: / I suppose your son is busier than you are, so I will spare him, & bother you with this complaint & prayer. This morning’s World says: ‘Last week the Sunday World printed “Hand Interviews” with Mark Twain & Thomas A. Edison, by Miss Channez Huntington Olney.’

I want to beg that my name shall not be bracketed with that of this adventuress, in the above way or any other way again.

Under cover of lies this alphabetical wench got access to my room & had a private conversation with me & went away & betrayed my confidence. There was no interview.

And there was one sign by which any journalist (or indeed any other person) would know that this rubbish was a fake—the fact that it made me speak in the first person. None but a stenographer can carry away a man’s own phrasing. On its face, therefore, this alleged interview was a lie & I  ought to have been asked about it over the telephone before using it.

It places me in a shabby position—that of a man who, after refusing interviews to the New York papers for weeks together, upon subjects of some importance, submits to an interview at last, upon an utterly trivial & contemptible theme. The Herald had just offered me an extravagant sum for an interview upon a respectable topic, & I had declined.

This scurvy drab came here disguised as a lady, & bearing what purported to be an introduction from Dan Frohman, & so my secretary was deceived. I enclose herewith her account of the matter.

I contend that the World should not have been deceived by this cheap swindle, for it knows that I do not fall easily to the interviewer.

With my kindest regards to you & Mrs. Pulitzer & the family, I am / Sincerely yours …./ I am satisfied that this woman stole those other interviews also [MTP]. Note: it’s not clear why Scharnhorst included this article (p. 647-9); he may not have Sam’s declaration “There was no interview” in this letter. Interestingly, quotations taken from this made-up interview are sometimes seen, along side the many “attributed” and the documented from Mark Twain. The “scurvy drab” reporter was Channez Huntington Olney. See Aug. 27.

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.

In my dream the archangel exclaimed— “Jesus H!”— nothing more.”

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, coldly, “you are deceived by a resemblance; I am only a poor author, And then he went on, & on, & on, & became ever more interesting—but it is a long tale, there is not time to tell it now. I will save it for later. For Jamestown, if they like religious things there.

No, sir! no literary ragtag & bobtail for me—on a gala excursion. Why, Uncle Henry, down there there’s going to be fireworks, & balls & banquets & receptions & all kinds of light & frolicsome goings-on, & the elderly people you have mentioned would be quite out of harmony with it. And besides, I don’t like the society of old people, anyway; I am not suited to it, I am not used to it,

—Never mind, this is Sunday, & no proper time to discuss such a such an— Oh, let it go! I never heard of such a goddam Noon. I have read a chapter, & oh, the healing of the perturbed spirit that is in the Good Book.

There is no occasion for any old dried fruit, Mary & Harry know an aboundance of young people, & can fill up the ship without any difficulty with an unstaled young product much more satisfactory to God than any of these mouldy, antiquities you are recommending. Praps you are trying to crowd in, yourself. Don’t do it; it’s no place for the aged.

I told Miss Lyon, 3 or 4 days—no, Friday—to make Mr. Dearborn definitely understand that there would be no human freight in the Kanawha but young people—not a single orator, nor anybody connected any way with an orator. I will introduce orators to their audience if it be required, & I & the other young people will line up with them in the New York Building & help them receive & shake hands with the population, & will also agree to be on hand & furnish youth & charm & grace & beauty to any function they choose to get up, & thereto as much respectability as shall be needed; [two words illegible] you had already made him understand that all I ever wanted any where was a chance to show off, & no responsibility.

Now I conclude that the terms of the Excursion are settled, if they are satisfactory to Harry & Mary. Otherwise, not even God can settle them, with all His talents.

Oh, keep on dodging & dodging around, & the first thing you know, you’ll make a slip of the pen & actually invite me to Fairhaven for a weekend—I never saw such a surreptitious old animal! Tell me—however, a Clemens has arrived. I have never heard of him before, but I will rush this letter to the mail & put on some clothes & see him.

With love to all—including the Coe baby, if there really is one, for you are such a—well, so unbelievable! [MTP; not in MTHHR].

Sam also inscribed a copy of Eve’s Diary with an aphorism to Katy Murray: “The main difference between a cat & a lie is, that the cat has only 9 lives. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Katy Murray’s birthday. / Sept. 1/07.” [MTP].

Sam also inscribed copies of HF and JA to Dorothy Quick on her eleventh birthday [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: The King slept right through last night without whiskey or other aids. And this first day of September has been a sweet kind of a day. Only one grimey thing happened. I was busy writing when the telephone rang and a Dr. Clemens said he would like to call on the King. With the King’s permission he came—he and his wife. She was a neat little woman, but he was fat and pudgy and impossible and rasped the King pretty badly. The surrey which was to take us to the Mortimers for tea was waiting and the King shouted up to me twice to say that we must go. He had been having a deadly time—for there wasn’t anything to say to that “damned Jay from the backwoods of Mo.” At the Mortimers we had a pleasant hour—no, less. This morning the King had discovered a marvelous Mona Lisa in Simplicissimus—the only satisfactory Mona Lisa he has ever seen. Of course it was in caricature, and he was so happy over it, that he carried it over to the Mortimers, and they were very much amused by it. The talk ran onto Matthew Arnold and Mrs. Mortimer spoke of her dislike of him as a personality. And the King told of his only talk with Arnold when they chatted in a serious way of Dr. John Brown (for the King had visited him in Edinburgh). After the little chat Arnold was heard to say “Can’t Clemens ever be serious?” He was a malicious and illbred creature and when he was over here found fault with everything. He had been invited to dine with the Aldriches who at that time lived out in Cambridge—Howells was there, and Dr. Holmes was there too, and was so apologetic because he was 3 minutes late. But the chief guest of the evening didn’t arrive for half an hour, and came blustering in making no excuse for his tardiness.

Yes—it’s fine to go to the Mortimers—with the King—it would be terrible to have to go without him, even if their house is full of very beautiful things, & rugs [MTP TS 98; also in part, Gribben 644]. Note: Gribben also cites a letter from Sam [to Albert Langen] praising Ragnvald Blix’s comic drawings of old masterpieces, then appearing in the German humor magazine Simplicissimus [ibid.] Gerrit S. Clemens, M.D. and wife from Texas. The wife wrote an appreciative note on Feb. 25, 1908 referring to this visit. See entry.