July 13 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.).
Why, bless your dear heart, you do give a body such a turn! I was expecting a word from you from the Yellowstone Park these two or three days past—& instead, all of a sudden—you appear above my horizon mutilated & in pain! It was very sweet of you to tell me of it first of all your friends, with your own hand. But I wonder you got out of the submerging influence of the ether sufficiently to handle a pencil on the third day. Clara was still torpid & incapable considerably longer than that. I hope to hear you haven’t had a backset. If you will come up here I will furnish you plenty of cool weather & the freshest of fresh air to get strong in, & make you very welcome besides.* Tuxedo is lovely, but sometimes the weather has spasms of being warmish there. [in margin: I wish Harry would come too, but the idea of his going anywhere on a visit is not merely unthinkable, it’s unimaginable!*]
This house was certainly a very pleasant surprise to me, & I was glad I knew nothing of it shape & character & furnishing & situations until I saw it three & a half weeks ago. It is a home—unquestionably a home. I have lived in only one other house which was able to produce in me the deep feeling inspired by that word; that was the Hartford home. I have the New York house for 14 months longer, but I do not wish to see it again; it was crude & rude, & its too pronounced & quarrelsome colors broke the repose of my spirit & kept me privately cursing & swearing all the time, even Sundays. I am negotiating a return of the property to its owner, after Clara shall have come home in October & consented. It is a good house in many ways, but I don’t expect to see it again. This is the place for me, my dear!
I have three neighbors within walking distance—a mile & a half, & I am good for that, after my long tramps up & down Fifth avenue to show my clothes. Half a dozen other friends live 5 or 6 miles from me, & they can easily drive over & see me & lunch with me, & they will do it. And I will lunch with them; but there are to be no dinners on either hand, & no gadding around at night, when I ought to be at home playing billiards. It isn’t lonesome here, & I don’t intend that it ever shall be. We have two kinds of visitors—week-enders & whole-weekers, for this place is handier to New York than is even Tuxedo. The friends come & go, right along—laps & slams —the new visitor getting into the old visitor’s bed before it is cold. One went away this morning; three came last Friday & will remain until next Friday, when Miss Marjorie Clinton will arrive—& Miss Lucia Hull too, I hope, though she hasn’t returned a Yes yet, & is probably away from Tuxedo.
We have good times, dear. Sunday services regular. We didn’t finish billiards, Saturday night, until 3 o’clock yesterday morning.
These statistics, these particulars, these informations, unto my dearest niece, along with my love—
Uncle Mark.
Read this & grit your teeth, Mariechen dear. Yesterday you were sending me that cunning post- card picture [not extant?] of a brother of mine, with the unrighteous purpose of “taking me down a peg”—as you slangers phrase it—& this morning comes this nice buttery card from a just & judicious shipmatess, & antidotally sets my self-complacency up again, a whole peg higher than it was before! Grit your teeth & try again—maybe you’ll score next time. Henry will sail at 10 tomorrow, & I am tied up & out of luck. / With love— / Uncle Mark [MTP]. Note: the guest who left this morning may have been George Robinson, an overnight stay not entered in the guestbook, but mentioned in the July 18 to Clara; the three who came on July 10 and left on July 17 or 18 are shown under July 10.
Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam.
My dear Mr. Clemens: / Thank you a thousand times for the lovely photographs which Miss Lyon handed me this morning. They are both fine and I’m delighted to have them. Also for the kind invitation extended me to spend a night at Redding. Please keep this open, for I really and truly want to come, although at present I cannot on account of mother’s ill health. I’m glad you have such a beautiful spot to rest in. The heat in the City is intense, but I believe cool weather is in sight. Mr. Rogers is coming to town for a day or two for which I’m mighty glad as the office does not seem right without him.
I’ll forward that picture to Mr. Lancaster, but between you and me and the lamp post, I think my two are the best.
Again thanking you for the pictures and with best wishes believe me / Most sincerely…[MTP].
Claude H. Miller for Country Life in America (a section of Doubleday) wrote to Sam, interested in seeing his home and getting a few photos and an interview [MTP]. Note: IVL: “The thing for him to do is to send a very competent man up here who will take my view & his own too. Couldn’t he sent that stenographer who came once in New York”
Joe Twichell wrote twice to Sam, from Chester, England.
Dear Mark: / In writing to you in some haste this morning, I forgot to tell you that a man—an English “divine” again—in Edinboro [sic] brought me [a] copy of “A Tramp Abroad,” and saying that he was informed that I was the “Harris” of that book, asked me to enrich the volume with my distinguished autograph!! Which, of course, I did. He must have got his information from some one of the American contingent of delegates assembled in the big council.
I have no doubt that they—the Americans—were responsible for my being clothed—as I related—with the glittering distinction of “M.T’s pastor” but it shows how you stand in both Gt. Britain and the U.S. It shows too what manner of [illegible word] is required of you as a man advertised to the whole world as a parishioner—with all the term implies.
A poor white Virginia woman whose children I baptized during the Civil War, said to the kids after the benediction, speaking with much severity of tone, “You’ve always got to be mighty good now!![”] You are under like compulsion to righteousness; or what becomes of me? I have received a note from Mr. J.Y.W. MacAlister of London, who says that you are his dear friend, begging me to let him see something of me when I am in town. If I have time I think I will give him a call, anyhow to thank him for his courtesy. I much need a treatise on the Rules of Proper Manners for a Satellite—or is it Sattelite as I wrote it first? Harmony and I can’t agree on the point, but I am about sure I am right. / Yrs Joe [MTP].
In the second longer letter Joe wrote this day, his sermon at Endinburgh, Scotland was over and off his mind. He asked Twain to send an autographed photo to a man in Edinburgh and talked of being interviewed by the London Daily Graphic. He announced they would sail from London on the S.S. Minnehaha on Aug. 8. “We are on the outlook for Clara, though we are not sure that she is still in the country. We mean to appear to her if she passes our way, or we her’s. Love to you dear old Fellow.” He also told of being informed of the death of “Uncle Remus,” and after his signature, Joe wrote, “I am sad to think that I shall see ‘Uncle Remus’ no more. I liked him well, and he as your very warm admirer” [MTP].