Vol 3 Section 0588 – Mark Twain Day By Day

1901

243

Mr.H. Applebaum

3.56

Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), American artist, naturalist and teacher who had spent two days in 1882 at the Clemens home drawing Mark Twain, wrote a several page letter to Sam.

“My Dear Mr. Clemens / During my six months just spent amidst the most glorious art of Italy, and this to a painter means immeasurable soul-food, my first most vital joy has been your, “‘To the Person Sitting in Darkness’” [MTP]. Note: Sam replied on June 27. Thayer focused on the issues in Sam’s paper and admonished Sam he didn’t need to write. He also recalled and prized the two days he spent drawing Mark Twain at the Hartford home (not yet dated but sometime after Feb. 24, 1882, the artwork to be used in the Sept. 1882 Century Magazine.

June 19 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “J.L. Underwood National Arts Club 7.30 | W. 34th near B’way N. side” [NB 44 TS 12].

At 1410 W. 10^th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Elizabeth W. Gilbert. “It is a charming letter & gives me great pleasure. I think you will write a book some day, & I hope I shall live to read it” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.

“I don’t know which to do—take no notice of P.& W.’s [Pratt & Whitney] New York letter, or send them the enclosed invitation. And so I’ll just get you, as head of the firm, to decide for me. I’ll never pay that bill till I’m forced.”

Sam wrote of waiting at the Holland House the day before and being advised by Broughton of Rogers’ staying in Fairhaven.

I shall [send] this, with our good-byes, to you all, to 26 Broadway to wait your return next Monday, there being nothing very urgent about P. & W’s affairs except their desire to collect. Mr Broughton said the good news (Amalgamated) would content your spirit and satisfy you to stay out the week at Fairhaven and finish your rest.

Put me in deep, in the Monoline combination—and do me a line and tell me about it when you’ve accomplished the cinch.

We shall finish packing to-morrow, and leave for our summer shanty at Saranac Lack, N.Y., Friday morning at 7.50, arriving there at 7 p.m.—through without breaking bulk [MTHHR 462-3].

Note: the “Monoline combination” was probably the J.P. Morgan-Edward Henry Harriman (1848-1909) consolidation of nearly all railroads west of Chicago. See source for details and related NY Times articles.

Century Magazine sent Sam several clippings (no letter). First, from the NY Evening Post of June 8. The story of Joseph Merrill, Sheriff of Carroll County, Ga., who refused to give into a lynch mob after the accused was issued a stay of execution. One man was killed in the mob. “Many a man who has gained a great reputation has shown less heroism in war than was displayed by Joseph Merrill yesterday.” The second clipping described briefly “The Evolution of Lynch Law”; the third clipping “Another Sheriff With Nerve” was a four-inch column item from Princeton, Ind. for June 8 about another Sheriff who refused hand over a prisoner to a mob; (these last two also from the Post; and two short articles from the NY Times, of Mar. 3 and Apr. 7, “Mob Lynched White Man,” and “Prayer Precedes a Lynching” [MTP]. Note: See Aug. 1901 entry.

Hiram Stevens Maxim wrote from London to Sam. Maxim had rec’d his letter (no date given); he told of a speech he gave in London about missionaries and a series of articles he was asked to write for the New York World:

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