Vol 3 Section 0597

Sam also wrote to William W. Appleton, wanting to retain Appleton’s man servant.He also thought they would only need livery service “as the family do not take much to driving about; but we shall be glad to put in a bid for the cow when we come” [MTP]. Note: Sam called on Appleton in N.Y.C. on Aug. 2; see letter to Livy of that date.

July 31 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers: “Dear Mr. Rogers. I shall be in New York & abed by 11 o’clock tomorrow night. S.L.C.” [MTP:Parke-Bernet Galleries catalogs, Apr. 28, 1959, Item 89].

Note: not in MTHHR.

William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.

I will try to keep the Hunter book in mind; I wish it were out now, for I need a text. I am afraid I can’t say anything very pleasant about our “learning to govern orientals,” though.

John [Howells], who enjoyed his Ampersanding immensely, reports you only partially satisfied with the universe, whence I infer that you think it has not improved since I last saw you. I don’t know that you followed the Fosburgh trial (Pittsfield, Mass.); but there was an example of detectiveship that almost eclipsed the Stolen White Elephant. And did you read how those burglars burgled a house next to a police station in New York the other night and kept the poor prisoners awake with their noise? All is not lost in a world where such things can happen. And Ament seems to have been coming out for you in a public statement saying that all missionaries do it, upon the advice of their secular representatives [MTHL 2: 728-9].

Notes: The Life of Sir William Wilson Hunter by Francis H. Skrine (1901); Sam had requested Howells look for it and give it a kind review. Robert S. Fosburgh was acquitted of killing his sister in Aug. 1900; see Note 5 source for more details. Ament was William S. Ament. See other entries.

August – Budd writes that Sam’s article “The United States of Lyncherdom” first published in Europe and Elsewhere (1923) was “written in August 1901” [Collected 2: 1006]. Note: J. Kaplan and others write that Sam was motivated by the Aug. 19 race riot and lynching of three Negro men in Pierce City, Mo. Some 300 blacks were chased into the woods during the riot [364]. This suggests that Sam wrote the piece after Aug. 19, but the Century Co. sent at least one packet of newspaper clippings on lynchings, lynch mobs, and courageous sherrif on June 19. Clearly, Sam was working on this article before August.

Arthur Reed Kimball’s article, “The New Provincialism,” ran in Atlantic Monthly, p. 260. Wells: “Kimball credits Twain with coining the phrase ‘playing the same game’ to refer to the empty activities that are characteristic of modern life” [25].

Murat Halstead’s article, “Happenings to Humorists: Tales of Three of the Old Masters” ran in

Criterion, p. 15-18. Tenney: “Anecdotes of Atemus Ward, Ned Sothern, and MT” [34].

Mark Lee Luther’s article, “Mark Twain and the First Nevada Legislature,” ran in the Aug.-Sept. issue of Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacific and the New, p.144-149. Tenney: “Describes a copy of the Territorial Enterprise, quotes extensively from RI, defends the legislature against ‘the implication of selfish incompetence,’ comparing Nevada legislative records with MT’s account, but gives little other new information” [35].

August 1 Thursday – Sam left the family at Lake Saranac, N.Y. and traveled to N.Y.C. arriving late in the evening [July 31 to Rogers]. He took rooms on the first floor of the Grosvenor Hotel, and complained that “the bed was hard as Maryborough” [Aug. 2 to Livy].

August 2 Friday – At 3 p.m. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote from Rogers’ office to Livy in Lake Saranac, N.Y.

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