September 7, 1905 Thursday

September 7 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I want to send you Twichell’s letter, but it is lost—not permanently, I merely can’t find it. I was going to carry it to you when I thought I was going to Fairhaven from Norfolk, & so I must have put it away too carefully. I will find it between now & next time I see you.

I do not get entirely over my lameness, & the gout has never kept up its threatenings so long before. Certainly the righteous do have a rough time of it in this world, I wish I was like Rice.

September 6, 1905 Wednesday

September 6 Wednesday – Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote Koy-Lo Co. letterhead to Sam, enclosing a letter from attorney Edward Lauterbach, who did not think Ashcroft had jeopardized himself in writing to Hammond. Ashcroft also enclosed a cartoon and a “want ad” from the NY Herald which he swore he had not placed [MTP].

September 5, 1905 Tuesday

September 5 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam replied by telegram to one from George B. Harvey that he was unable to come the Metropolitan Club dinner on Sept. 7 for the Russian envoys who negotiated a favorable treaty for Russia in the Russo-Japanese war. Sam would follow an explanation by letter [MTP]. Note: see Harvey’s original telegram and Lyon’s entry below.

George B. Harvey sent a telegram to Sam:

September 4, 1905 Monday

September 4 Monday – Len G. Westland wrote from London, Ontario Canada to offer Sam his “sincere admiration” and “best wishes for a long life…I raise my hat to you sir” [MTP]. Note: a day or two later ? Sam replied: “And, I, also, take off my hat to you; and with many thanks to you for what you have said”

Isabel Lyon’s journal:This morning Mr. Clemens sent for me to talk over the arrangements for a talk before some Boston Club—a woman’s club, and he spoke of all that femaleness as a “Bull fight!”

September 2, 1905 Saturday

September 2 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote per Lyon to Ralph W. Ashcroft, again warming him not to put Clemens’ name in any letters; he advised him again not to send any letters without submitting them to William Woodward Baldwin, the American Plasmon Co.’s attorney. “They are awful letters & will do you great harm” [MTP]. Note: Ashcroft had wanted to send a letter out to interested parties including Sam’s name and pasting a picture of a crowing rooster after announcing initial victories in court over John Hays Hammond and his allies in the company.

September 1, 1905 Friday

September 1 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Aug. 19 of William Hill. Sam was not well enough to write letters, she wrote, and he was seldom moved to write anything, and what he did write belonged to Harper & Brothers as he had a “very rigid contract” [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s Journal: “I have written to Miss Bright that I cannot, cannot, cannot write that article. Evey bit of me rebels, every bit of my mind and body” [MTP TS 92]. Note: see Aug. 26 entry.

September 1905

September – Miss Carrie Rosenheim of Baltimore, Md. wrote to Sam, calling him a “dear” and asking for an autograph [eBay item 230470822748, May 5, 2010]. Note: not extant but referred to in sale of Sam’s Oct. 9 reply.

Joseph Gilder’s article, “Glimpses of John Hay,” ran in Critic p, 248-52. Tenney: “Briefly tells of an evening with MT, Hay, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Adams, in Washington, January 1886” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p. 331].

August 31, 1905 Thursday

August 31 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Katharine B. Clemens (Mrs. James Ross Clemens) now in Cobourg, Canada.

I am just back from a gout-smitten 3-weeks’ visit to Clara in her rest-cure in Norfolk, Conn; & short as the distance is, I find the travel worse than the gout. I shan’t take any more journeys.

St. Louisians do not seem to mind railroading at all—they come here every summer, & they have houses of their own here. I suppose Miss Tracy saw Jean, not Clara, but Jean is absent & I can’t find out.

August 30, 1905 Wednesday

August 30 Wednesday – Sam was back in Dublin, N.H.

Isabel Lyon’s journal:There’s a copy of the Boston Globe here—and each man’s opinion of peace hops gleefully along on the heels of the last speaker. Same thought, same Hurrah! Mr. Clemens’s words alone stand as the words of a man thinking out the problem for himself and daring to speak his thought. In fact he couldn’t not speak his thought, for his thoughts are like great blazing torches, bursting into flame by force of the life within them and unextinguishable [MTP TS 92].

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