Vol 3 Section 0686
where he went back alone to the humble early home in India & found it empty & falling to decay—that is a moving picture, eloquent of what success costs us, the pathos of it only realizable to the full when we stand where the march began—& think! I have had that experience, & know the deeps of it. The book stirs every emotion & throbs with every interest that human beings feel; you have done your work well.
Would he have lived if he had not taken that journey to London? I wish he had not ventured it; I wish Lady Hunter had been with him to prevent it. A century will go by before England will realize the whole magnitude of the loss she sustained in his death [MTP].
Sam’s notebook: “Crosby & wife—dinner” [NB 45 TS 3]. Note: Ernest Howard Crosby, active in the Anti-Imperialist League.
February 12 Wednesday – George Iles inscribed a copy of Voices of Doubt and Trust (1897) by Volney Streamer (1850-1915), for Sam: “Samuel L. Clemens, from George Iles, / with the highest esteem /and regard. / New York, Feb. 12, 1902” [Gribben 673]. Note: Iles visited Sam on Feb. 17, and may have delivered this with him then.
Sam’s notebook: “Wm. E. Dodge, 262 Mad. Ave dinner & all night” [NB 45 TS 4].
Urban H. Broughton wrote to Sam, enclosing the Chicago address; he’d “taken these Swoboda Exercises faithfully since January 1st with a result so satisfactory” that he’d never spent $20 so well. The Mrs. and he thanked Sam and Livy for coming to their house on such a cold day [MTP]. Note: the day of the visit has not been determined, though Sam did dine at the Rogers’ home on Jan. 15.
February 13 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam finished his Feb. 5, 7, 11 to Francis H. Skrine.
Feb. 13. It is so good of you & Mrs. Skrine to offer us your house, & we thank you cordially & wish we could take you up, but we are barred. I suppose we shall summer on the coast of Maine. It looks like it; we are inquiring after a dwelling-house at York Harbor.
I am going yachting a fortnight hence, for six weeks in the West Indies & around there, but it will not break into my work. I shall shut myself up daily & bang along at it [MTP].
an unidentified person (“a public instructor”) wrote from the Philippines, somewhat disturbed about the word “œsophagus” in Sam’s “A Double-Barrelled Detective Story” [MTP: My Debut as a Literary Person with Other Essays and Stories, p. 313].
February 14 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Muriel M. Pears in Scotland.
Feb. 14. If you don’t come pretty soon, I shall begin to be afraid you are not coming this year at all. At the end of this month I am going yachting in the southern waters until the middle of April. If you come while I am gone, you must telephone the house, so that you can be met at the station & properly cared for [MTP].
Fatout lists Sam as reading stories, “Death-Disk,” and “Tale No. 2” at an unspecified public school in
N.Y.C. [MT Speaking 670]. Note: this undoubtedly connected with this entry for Feb. 14 in Sam’s notebook:
“P.S. I read little Tale No. 2 (21 minutes) & the Death-Disk (about 35)— total, 56 minutes.
Read Two Little Tales to 40 teachers—day-time.
Chas. Fairchild, 39 E 31st. 4 p.m. (I think)” [NB 45 TS 4]. Note: “P.S.” likely designates Public School.
Hydesaburo Ohashi, Harvard student, wrote to Sam that he’d rec’d his letter in January and thanked him
[MTP]. Note: Ohashi had sent poetry.
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.