February 7 Wednesday – The New York Times, Feb. 8, reported on another speech by Mark Twain, this one at a dinner of the American branch of the Dickens Fellowship, which was celebrating the 94 anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Sam did not mention Dickens in his speech. See also Fatout, MT Speaking 482-4.
TWAIN ON ROCKEFELLER, JR.
———
He’s All Right, but as to His Knowledge of Veracity—Well!
February 5 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam replied to William A. Caldwell (incoming not extant) who evidently had asked of something Sam spoke of in a recent talk; was it an example of “thought-transferrence”? No, it was simply an old maxim of his written in London ten years before that he’d made one of his texts in his speech. “The idea is pretty mouldy & commonplace. There isn’t anybody alive (or dead) who hasn’t used it from one to sixty times” [MTP].
February 4 Sunday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Richard R. Bowker asking when “a copyright meeting of importance in Washington or elsewhere” would take place [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Yesterday Mr. Paine gave to Mr. Clemens and me copies of the first Tammany Tiger designed by
February 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam wrote to Dennis J. Mahoney.
Dear M . Mahoney: / If you go on trying to make better Americans of the people whom you meet you cannot be better employed. You will be doing your best, you will be doing your full share, & nothing more can be required of any man. / May you prosper— … [MTP]. Note: Mahoney not further identified.
Sam also wrote to Gertrude Natkin, 138 W. 98 in N.Y.C.
January 31 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y. Sam replied to Charles Alexander’s Jan. 29: .