Vol 3 Section 0573

compliment to a man that he shall come out of it so gloriously as Mr. Mabie came out of it tonight, to my surprise. He did it well.

He appears to be editor of The Outlook, and notwithstanding that, I have every admiration, because when everything is said concerning The Outlook, after all one must admit that it is frank in its delinquencies, that it is outspoken in its departures from fact, [Laughter,] that it is vigorous in its mistaken criticisms of men like me. I have lived in this world a long, long time, and I know you must not judge a man by the editorials that he puts in his paper. A man is always better than his printed opinions. A man always reserves to himself on the inside a purity and an honesty and a justice that are a credit to him, whereas the things that he print are just the reverse.

Oh yes, you must not judge a man by what he writes in his paper. Even in an ordinary secular paper a man must observe some care about it; he must be better than the principles which he puts in print. And that is the case with Mr. Mabie. Why, to see what he writes about me and the missionaries you would think he did not have any principles! But that is Mr. Mabie in his public capacity. Mr. Mabie in his private capacity is just as clean a man as I am.

In this very room, a month or two ago, some people admired that portrait; some admired this, but the great majority fastened on that, and said there is a portrait that is a beautiful piece of art. When that portrait is a hundred years old it will suggest what were the manners and customs in our time. Just as they talk about Mr. Mabie tonight, in that enthusiastic way, pointing out the various virtues of the man and the grace of his spirit, and all that, so was that portrait talked about. They were enthusiastic, just as we men have been over the character and work of Mr. Mabie. And when they were through they said that portrait, fine as it is, that work, beautiful as it is, that piece of humanity on that canvas, gracious and fine as it is, does not rise to those perfections that exist in the man himself. Come up, Mr. Alexander! [The reference was to James W. Alexander who happened to be sitting beneath the portrait of himself on the wall.] Now, I should come up and show myself. But he cannot do it, he cannot do it. He was born that way, he was reared in that way. Let his modesty be an example, and I wish some of you had it, too. But that is just what I have been saying—that portrait, fine as it is, is not as fine as the man it represents, and all the things that have been said about Mr. Mabie, and certainly they have been very nobly worded and beautiful, still fall short of the real Mabie. [Note: the article did not use quotation marks for Sam’s speech.]

Walter H. Beecher of Cincinnati, Ohio wrote to compliment “Sitting in Darkness” [MTP].

April 30 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Pamela to dinner Dimmock? 12.30” [NB 44 TS 9]. Note: Mr. & Mrs. Henry F. Dimock, of New York. Social Register,. NY of July 1911 gives as “Dimock” with Henry deceased in April, 1911.

May – At 1410 W. 10^th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to William Dean Howells.

Dear Howells: / Won’t you come down & dine tomorrow, 7.30? Nobody but the family & Rev. Geo.

Williamson Smith, (President of Trinity, Hartford)—one of the loveliest men alive.

You’ll get this this evening. Answer it, then, per mail, & we’ll get it in time [MTHL 2: 728]. Note: In Weggis, Switzerland, Livy had run into Smith, who lunched with the Clemens: see July 30, 1897 entry. See also notes after this letter in source.

Scott puts May 1901 to Sam’s poem, “My Last Thought” [Camfield’s Bibliog.]. Note: See Jan. 4, 1906 IVL.

May 1 Wednesday – In the evening from 1410 W. 10^th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Katharine I. Harrison that H.H. Rogers had approved of a purchase of Chicago & Alton preferred stock in the amount of $10,000. “Therefore,” he wrote, “I am prepared to send you the check at any moment you require it” [MTP].

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.