February 11 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Charles D. Burrage.

You wrote me a very kind letter eleven years ago (to Hartford.) It arrived here safe & sound last night. I have not been in Hartford for 14 years, but almost all the time in Europe. Your letter was inside a parcel of beautiful pictures; if it had been outside it would have been forwarded to Paris; but by my order all parcels were stopped in Hartford, & stored there. Yours was mislaid, along with a present of tea from India—I do not know how it happened—but both reached me last night. I thank you very much for the beautiful pictures, & I greatly regret my (enforced) tardiness in saying so [MTP].

John Larkin, attorney, wrote to Sam. “I enclose herewith letter received from Mr. Forgy in reference to the Texas property. I wrote him that you would accept the proposition of purchase, but I stated that you should not be under any expense connected therewith except the payment of commission…” [MTP]. Note: Archer County, Texas property owned by Livy; see entries Vol. I, II, III. Sanford Wilson was the purchaser [IVL journal #2 July 11, 1905].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens told us of how when he was 17 he ran away from home—came to New York, went to Philadelphia and Washington and was away a year. He came to New York to see the exposition that was at 42nd St. and 5th Ave, where the new library is now going up. He is a marvellous talker. Holding one spellbound by the flow of his narrative [MTP: TS 39-40].

Harper’s Weekly ran an article, “Mark Twain on Copyright” p.214. Tenney: “A letter to the editor, supporting MT’s article on copyright in the current North American Review” [41]. Also in this issue was Twain’s “A Postscript by Mark Twain,” p. 220-1. See 16? Jan. 1905 entry.

Sam contemplated a work to be called “Adam’s Soliloquy,” and would read parts of it (What Is Man?) to Isabel Lyon on Mar. 5 [Hill 100].