Vol 3 Section 0686

628                                                                        1902

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 ThursdayIn 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 FridayIn 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.