August 28 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to John H. Stevens, older brother of Ed Stevens, one of Sam’s sidekicks in the Marion Rangers, 1861.
If Brooklyn were in America—or England—or France—or anywhere near by, I would certainly call on you, I would indeed; but I know no journey that to me is so distant & so formidable as is the journey to Brooklyn. The few times I have been there were seasons of terror to me, I seemed so far away from natural protectors. You must be John—of the Upper River; of the generation of Orion Clemens, David Garth, Charley Meredith, Bill Briggs, John Bowen, as I was of the generation of Ed. Stevens, John Garth, John Meredith, John Briggs, Will Bowen, etc. Orion died 4 years ago, aged 73; I shall be 66 at this year’s end.
Sam continued about Ed Stevens, whom he’d had “a good deal of correspondence with …a year or two before he died.” These are not extant, but Sam did respond to a letter from Ed’s sister, Jenny S. Boardman (Stevens) on Mar. 25, 1887 (see entry) . Sam thanked John for a picture of Ed, but with the beard Sam hardly recognized him. He did remember Ed’s ways and their friendship, however.
“We were great friends, warm friends, he & I. He was of a killingly entertaining spirit; he had the light heart, the care-free ways, the bright word, the easy laugh, the unquenchable genius of fun; he was a friendly light in a frowning world—he should not have died out of it” [MTP].
Note: Wecter describes Ed Stevens as “The jeweler’s son…handsome and ‘neat as a cat’ but no sissy. Always ready for fun, he led an insurrection that tore down Dick Hardy’s stable, as Sam Clemens remembered, and later joined that ‘rebel company’ that lasted for two weeks…” [142-3].
Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell, with a differing literary opinion:
Just a word, to scoff at you, with your extravagant suggestion that I read the biography of Phillips Brooks—the very dullest book that has been printed for a century. Joe, ten pages of Mrs. Cheney’s masterly biography of her father—no, five pages of it—contain more meat, more sense, more literature, more brilliancy, than the whole basketful of drowsy rubbish put together. Why, even in that dead atmosphere even Brooks himself is dull.—he wearied me; oh how he wearied me!
We had a noble good time in the yacht, & caught a China missionary & drowned him. Don’t you give it away; we are letting on that it was General Funston, U.S.A.
Sam also scoffed at the idea of Joe teaching him how to fish, and claimed he hadn’t “caught a fish—for ‘sport’—in 42 years,” and would “rather lose a finger-joint that see the poor devil struggle” [MTP].
Notes: Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) was American Protestantism’s most respected figure in the last half of the 19th Century; for over twenty years pastor at Boston’s Church of the Holy Trinity. The biography of Brooks was an adoring one: Alexander V.G. Allen (1841-1908) wrote: Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks, 2 volumes, 1900 (see Gribben p. 21). General Frederick Funston captured the Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo on Mar. 23, 1901.
William John Sowden (b.1858) editor of The Register, Adelaide, South Australia wrote to Sam advising
he was “sending you a copy of a little book of sketches written by me for private circulation after a visit to China.” Sam noted on the envelope, “China Sketches” [MTP]. Note: see Gribben p.654.