Vol 3 Section 0724
I know that I am communicating the very ABC of knowledge—infant-class instruction, in fact—but bless you, sir, you need it, you see! Now I charge you to beware, I beseech you to beware, of the ostensible extravagant “invention.” Discount its claim, for if it is a thing which could happen, it has none; it has already happened, in real life [MTP]. Note: which recent story of Sam’s included a “tragic incident”? Likely “A Defence of General Funston,” which ran in the May issue of the N.A R.
Sam also wrote to Hélène Elisabeth Picard, with more discussion of the Juggernaut Club; she was his “Member” for France. He assured her the “Rules are not very exacting—to keep in touch with the Chief Servant” [himself] was the main thing. He also reassured her that daughter Jean was not put out by typing of the club’s documents, even though she did not know who was getting them or what they meant.
You are not giving my daughter Jean any trouble, & you mustn’t take any on her account; she likes to do my type-writing, & doesn’t collect anything—except protests against opinions which she finds in my literature: these she brings when her work is done, & suggests modifications & amendments. But I don’t succumb—nobody has any real authority over my manuscript but her mother.
I am going to write, now, to my good friend Tauchnitz, in Leipzig & tell him to send you “Huckleberry Finn” & “The Prince & the Pauper;” & I will attend to it before something occurs to interrupt me & defeat my purpose. I am very grateful for your love, & am venturing to send mine in return—autocratically, & without asking leave, for such are the ways of Chief Servants! [MTP]. Note: after his signature he confirmed he’d written Tauchnitz (letter not extant).
Sam wrote Christian B. Tauchnitz, letter not extant but referred to (and purpose of) in his above to Picard. The proof that he did send the letter is Picard’s thanks of May 9 for the books sent by Tauchnitz.
Livy’s diary: “Miss Burbank came to luncheon” [MTP: DV161].
The Daily Princetonian, p.1, ran “Address by Mr. S.L. Clemens.” Tenney: “MT addressed the Monday Evening Club Saturday night (April 19) at the home of Laurence Hutton. He spoke on ‘Patriotism,’ and spent most of the evening reading from proofs of ‘A Defence of General Funston,’ due to appear in the North American Review“ [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.8].
April 22 Tuesday – In the morning Clara Clemens left for Paris with a chaperone on the German liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. It had been arranged for her to take some singing lessons there, and also to meet Ossip Gabrilowitsch . Though fraught with foreboding about leaving her mother, her future husband had assured her in a letter of Apr. 6 that such “single haunting ideas” were childish and that nothing would happen. Clara would reach Paris about May 1 [My Husband Gabrilowitsch 24-25; NY Times, Apr. 23, p.8, “Summer Tide To Europe”].
Note: A. Hoffman claims Clara “fled to Europe to join Ossip Gabrilowitsch without telling her parents where she was going, why, or when she would return” [443]. Note: this seems to be contradicted by this entry in Livy’s diary, which at the least gives destination and time of return, and by Sam’s letter to Rogers of Apr. 14, 1902.
Livy’s diary: “Clara sailed without us for Europe to be gone three months!!” [MTP: DV161].
Hill observes: “Almost without warning so far as extant documents show, she departed for Paris, where Ossip was, on Apr. 22. She was accompanied by a chaperone, her voice teacher, Mrs. Frieda Ashforth, who, according to Clara, ‘was not entirely left out of the fun Gabrilowitsch and I had together.’ It is possible to speculate about her parents’ attitude toward such liberated behavior (though they canceled their plan to spend the summer of 1902 in Venice, where they would presumably chaperone their daughter). Significantly, however, between Clara’s departure and her reappearance in New York on August 12, there are no extant letters between parents and daughter, no notebook entries referring to Clara
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.