July 23 Saturday – In Tyringham, Mass. Sam wrote two letters (the first not sent) to Frank Mason (US Consul at Frankfurt), complaining of the neglect in sending certificates for Livy’s casket to the Prince Oscar before it left from Naples, threatening to put the casket ashore. The second letter:
Dear Mason: / Will you place the enclosures before the H. A. [Hamburg-American] Co., or synopsize my complaint & submit that to them? They might pay no attention to me, a common citizen, but they will not treat you & the Italian Consul-General so. If my poor dear lost incomparable wife had been thrust ignominiously ashore at Naples—think of that. It was actually going to be done. The captain showed me that he really could not dare to do otherwise. I replied with what I believed to be a true statement: “If you do it the American newspapers will ring with it from end to end of the Continent, & it will be an unhappy day for this Company.” He was greatly worried, poor fellow—& quite naturally—but it was a plain case of fight the United States or the newspapers, & he made his choice.
Dr. Kirch is a mere robber, & I told him so, & invited him to sue for his lacking 2200 francs. It is not likely that he will expose his case in a court, but I will find a way to make him unhappy. He charged me two prices & a half. I stood three months of it—under protest—because a change of physicians would disturb Mrs. Clemens; but I refused to pay his last 28 days’ bill. He knew I could not venture a change of doctors, since every change had been a new damage to the patient, therefore he took advantage of my helplessness to rob me.
Clara does not rally from the awful shock of her mother’s death, & I am miserably uneasy about her. Jean is faring better, but not much. We are without interest in life, now. We have lost that which excused the insult of life & modified the curse of it—indeed made life not only endurable, but dear & beautiful to us.
We remember you all with love … [MTP].
Lena Bogardus Lardner (1834-1918), wrote to Sam from Niles, Mich., that she would send her 1903 book of prose and verse, This Spray of Western Pine (“a dainty book of dainty verse, dantily produced. Illustrated prettily”) which she felt might be of some comfort to him [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Wait for this book.” See Gribben p.397.