January 28 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to William L. Alden.
I thank you heartily for giving me a chance to read it. Your article has given me great pleasure, special pleasure. It requires courage to say what you have said; few can run counter to an accepted & established popular notion & not lose nerve in the transit. We have all seen it, many times.
It is the end of the sixth week that I have passed in bed with gout and bronchitis. I should have written you a fortnight ago if I had been physically competent [MTP]. Note: possibly Alden’s article, “Mark Twain; Samuel L. Clemens,” which ran in the Nov. 1904 issue of English Illustrated Magazine, p. 182-4; see Vol. III for Nov. 1904. See also Gribben 14-15 for other books listed by Alden.
Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: “Today proposition came thro Mr. Larkin to purchase Texas property for $950.00 Mr Clemens accepts
Letter came from Mr. Norman Hapgood describing a nice house at Cornish, Vt.” [MTP TS 3].
Note: Hapgood (1868-1937) had known the Clemenses since 1889 when he was on Thanksgiving vacation from Harvard, where he graduated the next year. When faced with making “a violent declaration of love to Susie” (Clemens) in a play at the Clemens’ home, The Love Chase, Hapgood froze. It was his one stage “performance.” [MFMT 57; The Changing Years – Reminiscences of Normal Hapgood (1930) p.205]. Before this Hapgood was the drama critic of the NY Commercial Advertiser and of the Bookman (1897-1902).
John Larkin, N.Y. attorney, wrote a short note enclosing a letter from Mr. W.E. Forgy, Texas lawyer, about the Texas property. Larkin wanted Sam “to kindly read & advise” as to what reply he should make.
On or just after Larkin’s note with letter arrived, Isabel V. Lyon responded for Sam: “Mr. Clemens would like Mr. Larkin to accept the proposition” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Michael Monahan.
It is strong & eloquent & beautiful & I thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to read it. The inspiration which tipped your pen with fire is from the Maid. After all these centuries that force still lives—lives & grows. And it will never cease to live & grow, I think.
I was struck by a remark of yours (& I agree with it) that from the day of the martyrdom the Maid has been “the glory of the faith & the shame of the Church.”
I was hoping she would never be canonized. One doesn’t build monuments to Adam: he is a monument himself [MTP]. Note: Monahan’s article, “Saint Mark” in the Dec. 1904 issue of The Papyrus was the target of Sam’s praise. Monahan would later publish My Jeanne d’Arc: Her Wonderful Story in the Light of Recent Researches [Gribben 479, 525]. Note: The Society of the Papyrites (vol. 4, no. 3) published this letter in their March issue.