Vol 3 Section 0356
I wrote 3 articles. Mrs. Clemens suppressed two of them because in them I was trying to prove that all men are born crazy, & that that, by help of some other circumstances, secures perpetuity & a wide dominion for the new fad [Christian Science].
The thing is on a cash-&-piety basis, its powers & authorities are centralized in a close (& irresponsible) corporation, & it is as well organized a Trust as the Papacy itself. It will give hordes of people of both sexes an easy chance to make money, without having to waste a week on education or apprenticeship; before Mrs. Eddy is cold in her grave her disciples will add her to the Godhead & teach their children to worship her. Then, persecution will grow brisk, & will result in the usual boom—& the game is made! …The human race was born crazy—the indestructible isms of the ages prove it—& C.S. offers the best chance it has ever had to spread itself & have a wild good time [MTP]. Note: Sam’s letter was on letterhead bearing 30 Wellington Court, Albert Gate, an address he’d previously kept secret except to Poultney Bigelow. See Gribben 285 for Hale, who is best known for his story, “Man Without a Country,” a phrase Sam borrowed from time to time.
Sometime during his stay at the hotel while using the letterhead bearing the address, that is, between Nov.
1, 1899 and June 26, 1900, Sam wrote to R. Howard. Krause.
“It is too bad. We are un come atable till Tuesday a trifle after 5. Could you come then? It is only tea, but is good tea. We wish it were something more substantial, but we can’t ask a Christian to eat the dinners they provide here; it would be suicide on the Christian’s part & assassination on ours” [MTP]. Note: R. Howard Krause, sometimes seen as Rudolph H. Krause.
James Henry Wiggin wrote from Roxbury, Mass. to Sam. He had rec’d Sam’s of Oct. 12 and “taken the liberty of alluding to it in my addresses on the C.S. subject since then, which have attracted some notice in Boston, N.Y., and other papers. As to using my name to ‘silence C.S. Objections’, Why not? ”[MTP].
November 2 Thursday – In London, England Sam wrote an aphorism to an unidentified person: “It is not best that we use our morals weekdays, it gets them out of repair for Sundays. / Truly Yours/ Mark Twain. Nov. 2/99” [MTP].
November 3 Friday – In London, Sam wrote to Mrs. Keenan
Your letter has given me very great pleasure, & I wish to thank you for taking the time and trouble to write it.
I had half a notion to put Huck & Tom into the Spanish war, but I was so slow about it that the war was over before I got them in.
You have made me a little homesick in speaking of our house—which two members of the family have not seen in 9 years, & I but once in that time—but the exile will end in the spring, I think, & then we shall see it. / Sincerely… [MTP]. Note: the lady is not further identified, but seems to have had a Hartford connection.
Charles Warren Stoddard, Sam’s old friend from Sandwich Island days and his London secretary in 1873 wrote from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. to Sam. “My friends, the Denslows, are so anxious to have you order their new books—‘Father Goose’—and to get a line from you. Just a line” [MTP]. Note: Father Goose; His Book by Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), illustrated by William Wallace Denslow (1856-1915); see Gribben 185.
November 4 Saturday – In London, England Sam replied to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, who evidently sent payment for Sam’s “Lie” article. He enclosed the receipt and responded that he didn’t believe he “could write on those subjects—& anyway, I mustn’t; because I must punch myself up & bang along with my regular work” [MTP]. See Oct. 30.
Sam began treatments from Dr. Jonas Henrick Kellgren Osteopath, and was sent a bill from “Kellgren’s Swedish Institution,” London , for £36.15.0 for Nov. 4 [1899 Financial file MTP].
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.