September 26 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Moberly Bell—to meet Lord Cromer—8.15. Will Mrs. C. come too?
8 at Chatto, 2 at A & NA / Library on steamer? / Labels to 15 Cockspur. / Better 60 days of Dollis than a cycle of Cathay” [NB 43 TS 26]. Note: Gribben connects this with Frank Stockton’s novel, A Bicycle of Cathay (1900) now being serialized in Harper’s [666].
September 27 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Evening dress. / Call for me at 7.30. / Kensal Rise / Reading Room. / ‘I thank you’ Dresden” [NB 43 TS 26].
Sam spoke briefly at the opening of a new reading room in Kensal Rise, London.
I formally declare this reading room open, and I think that the legislature should not compel a community to provide itself with intelligent food, but give it the privilege of providing it if the community so desires.
September 28 Friday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister asking him to look at the enclosed (not specified) and to post it if it was all right. Sam was unable to get into London on this day and wrote he might not get in the next day, but would see Mac on Monday [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Frank E. Oldis.
September 29 Saturday – James B. Pond’s article, “Across the Continent with Mark Twain,” ran in Saturday Evening Post p.6-7. Tenney: “Chiefly on the trip to the West Coast in 1895, beginning the world tour that would lead to FE; includes excerpts from Pond’s journal, MT letters of 17 September 1897 (from Weggis, Lake Lucerne), 4 April 1899 (from Vienna), and one undated. Illustrated with ten photographs of MT.
September 30 Sunday – According to Sam’s Sept. 19 to MacAlister, this was the last night the Clemens family spent at Dollis Hill.
September 4 Tuesday – James B. Pond wrote to Sam.
I am glad to get your letter on the margin of the proposed little story for my book. I don’t agree with you. I believe that a man who can write a letter that makes one feel as though his friends should enjoy the same feeling, has no right to insist that everybody should wait for him to die,—a man who has a lease of life for one hundred years, as you have. You have got the thing down so fine that you can live without eating, and a man who does not require nourishment is an “evergreen”.
September 6 Thursday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam replied to an invitation by Stanley W. Ball to speak at a new reading room for the local library at Kensal Rise. Sam wrote over the letterhead, “Duplicate of a letter which I lost, this morning between Dollis Hill & the station.”