June 5 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “J. Ross Clemens / 110 N. 8th st. St Louis / smoker. / Rochambeau reception./ Mayor Wells. / The stolen watermelon. & skiff” [NB 45 TS 16].
Livy’s diary: “Mrs Orton Bradley & Mildred Holden here for tea, beside Mrs Whitmore” [MTP: DV161].
In Columbia, Mo. Sam wrote to Charles E. Still. “I remember you very well, & I wish I could accept your kind invitation, but my time is filled up & I am obliged to deny myself the pleasure” [MTP].
At 6 p.m. Sam arrived back in St. Louis, where he was given a reception and dinner by James Ross Clemens. The St. Louis Republic, June 6, p.2 announced his return to the city:
Renewed Welcome to Mark Twain
Wearing the additional honor of Doctor of Laws, conferred upon him by the State University, Samuel L. Clemens returned to the city yesterday [June 5] from Columbia, Mo., to receive a renewed welcome. As Mark Twain the weight of the newly acquired distinction rested lightly upon him. As Doctor Samuel Clemens, however, he took advantage of the degree.
“I am told that a Doctor of Laws ranks a Doctor of Medicine and other kinds of doctors,” he said last night at a smoker given in his honor by his cousin, Doctor James Ross Clemens…. “For this reason I propose
to remain seated while the other doctors stand.” And he did ….
Robertus Love’s article, “Dr. Mark Twain at a Smoke Talk,” ran in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 6, p.2 and gives some additional details on the smoker given by Sam’s cousin, James Ross Clemens. The gathering included about 50 men at the home of James Ross, who had moved into the house only a week before; he’d been in England for the past 20 years studying medicine. An additional event this evening was hosted for Mark Twain, which is revealed in this article:
At 10:30 Walter B. Stevens arrived with an invitation from President Francis of the St. Louis Club for Dr. Clemens (M.D.) and his guests to attend the club’s reception in honor of the Count and Countess Rochambeau. The party proceeded to the St. Louis Club, where Mark Twain held an involuntary reception in the garden, gay with lights and lovely ladies’ faces.
The great Missourian talked with the count in French and with the countess in English. He talked with the other ladies and gentlemen in any language that came to hand. No language appears to stump Mark Twain; for, though he was not the Latin linguist of Hannibal public school of half a century ago—the one and solitary pupil who knew Latin—he has become a cosmopolite and can palaver many dialects, from Mississippi river patrols to Volapuk.
Until midnight the author was the center of groups of admirers. …
This evening Mr. Clemens will dine at the St. Louis Club as the guest of honor, Theophile Papin being the host.
Saturday he will visit the World’s Fair site and other points of interest, and at noon Sunday he will board the Knickerbocker special for New York, where he will retire to his home at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson and smoke some cigars.
[Notes: David Rowland Francis (1850-1927), ex-Mayor of St. louis, Gov. of Missouri, and U.S. Sec. of Interior, was the president of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair committee. Theophile (Toto) Papin (1857-1916) was a prominent citizen. Sorrentino claims reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robertus Love, boarded Sam’s train in Illinois on the incoming trip, and that “approximately one hundred newspaper articles record an almost hourly account of his activities” p.13; Sorrentino reports that two girls gave Sam flowers at
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.
1902 689
the smoker, p.21; Sam’s NB denotes he likely told the watermelon story and others at the Rochambeau reception; MTCI 453-6]
The Chicago Daily Tribune, June 6, ran a special piece from Columbia, Mo. that (once again) Sam announced he would no longer speak from the platform.
TWAIN’S VOW OF SILENCE.
HUMORIST SAYS HE WILL MAKE NO MORE SPEECHES.
Declares His Appearance at Columbia, Mo., Is His Last on Public Platform—
In Interview He Says He Feels No Particular Honor Because Russia
Has Excluded His Books—
He Finds That Many Others Have Met Same Treatment.
Columbia, Mo., June 5.—[Special.]—Mark Twain has retired from the public platform for ever. His appearance at Missouri University, where he received his degree of LL.D., was his last as a public speaker. On this occasion he talked for nearly an hour. He was in a brilliant mood. There was a flash in every word he uttered, and he proved the truth of the assertion of Julian Hawthorne, that no man in the world can handle a joke for all that it is worth and bring it out so forcibly and clearly as Mark Twain.
The audience laughed and laughed again, but some of them cried when the speaker said in tones that shook with suppressed emotion that he was bidding Missouri and old friends farewell forever.
Will Make No More Speeches.
“Please announce in the papers,” said Twain today, “that I have retired forever from the public platform.” When interviewed concerning the recent dispatches to the effect that the German translations of his works have been excluded by the Russian authorities, Mark Twain was not a bit worried. “I am not in the least surprised,” said the humorist. “The books of hundreds of other authors are excluded every year from Russia, and the fact that my works are barred gives me little concern. I am but one of a vast number whose books have been excluded and are being shut out every day by the Russian authorities and I take it as no special compliment that I am among so many.
Russia Fears for Monarchy.
“Russia has a great many Germans in its population and is gradually Russianizing them and naturally it does not wish any literature circulated that would influence any of the people in favor of a monarchy.
“In some of my works I may have said something that could have been colored into a pronounced expression of views against the Russian government, and it is probable that this accounts for the fact that my books have been barred, and I think that the political cast of some of my stories is alone responsible.”
Mr. Clemens left at noon today for St. Louis, where he will be entertained by the officials of the fair.
From St. Louis he will go directly to New York.
Nation (NY) ran a brief review of “A Double-Barrelled Detective Story” on p. 448. Tenney: “The assertion that ‘the author enters upon a field that is entirely new’ brings to mind thoughts of Conan Doyle using Tom Sawyer as a character, or other writers using MT as a subject; but ‘happily Mark Twain is inimitable’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p. 172].
Independent ran an anonymous review of “A Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” p.54. The review was tongue-in- cheek, claiming Mark Twain never wrote it, but someone named Samuel L. Clemens did, a persecuter of Twain for many years. It applied Bacon-Shakespeare ciphers to Chapter 10, to extract statements that Clemens claims to be Mark Twain [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Sixth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Spring 1982 p. 9].