Vol 3 Section 0761

JA (2 vols.): “Pond, I enjoyed making this book. Your friend Mark Twain” / “I’m glad you like this book. I liked it myself”

TSA, TSD: “To my dear friend Pond, Mark Twain”

AC.: “To My Friend Pond, Mark Twain” [MTP].

June 30 Monday – Livy wrote Harriet Whitmore thanking her for referring Isabel Van Kleek Lyon (1863-1958) for hire as a personal secretary. Livy wanted Miss Lyon to visit for “a few days” and interview. They had a guest room until Clara returned. If hired, Livy preferred that Isabel would find a boarding place outside of the home [MTOW 19]. Note: see source for full letter. Lyon came in mid July and was hired; she began employment with the Clemens family early in October. See October entry.

Harper & Brothers sent Sam statements dated June 30, showing $4,669.20, $6,516.00, and $5,419.21 (less $54.97 in purchases) in royalties due Nov. 1, 1902 [1902 Financials file MTP].

Franklin G. Whitmore sent Clemens a June 30 statement of his Hartford account showing $1,686.53 income, $1,635.64 expenses, and $50.89 on hand [1902 Financials file MTP].

July – Cassell’s Magazine p.115-21 ran “A Day with Mark Twain.” Tenney: “On a visit to MT at Saranac Lake, New York; consists largely of familiar biographical data, with five photographs” [37].

Review of Reviews (London), p.54 included “Mark Twain and His Career.” Tenney: “Summarizes and quotes W.B. Northrop’s ‘A Day with Mark Twain’ in the July Cassell’s” [36].

July-August – William Dean Howells writes of the summer near the Clemens family:

During the summer he spent at York Harbor I was only forty minutes away at Kittery Point, and we saw each other often; but this was before the last time at Riverdale. He had a wide, low cottage in a pine grove overlooking York River, and we used to sit at a corner of the veranda farthest away from Mrs. Clemens`s window, where we could read our manuscripts to each other, and tell our stories, and laugh our hearts out without disturbing her. At first she had been about the house, and there was one gentle afternoon when she made tea for us in the parlor, but that was the last time I spoke with her. After that it was really a question of how soonest and easiest she could be got back to Riverdale; but, of course, there were specious delays in which she seemed no worse and seemed a little better, and Clemens could work at a novel he had begun. He had taken a room in the house of a friend and neighbor, a fisherman and boatman; there was a table where he could write, and a bed where he could lie down and read; and there, unless my memory has played me one of those constructive tricks that people`s memories indulge in, he read me the first chapters of an admirable story. The scene was laid in a Missouri town, and the characters such as he had known in boyhood; but as often as I tried to make him own it, he denied having written any such story; it is possible that I dreamed it, but I hope the MS. will yet be found. Upon reflection I cannot believe that I dreamed it, and I cannot believe that it was an effect of that sort of pseudomnemonics which I have mentioned. The characters in the novel are too clearly outlined in my recollection, together with some critical reservations of my own concerning them. Not only does he seem to have read me those first chapters, but to have talked them over with me and outlined the whole story [MMT 90]. Note: the room Sam took was in the neighbor’s home, the Sewalls. See Aug. 15 entry.

During the York Harbor stay, Sam wrote the sketch, “The Belated Russian Passport” [Wilson 7].

July, ca. – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Laura H. Frazer.

My dear old Friend: I know that Dr. Gill sent me a program, but it miscarried and did not reach me.

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