Vol 3 Section 0909

1903                                                                            ⁸⁴⁷

On or just after this date Sam responded to Edwin H. Anderson’s above inquiry about his forthcoming book on Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science by writing on the margin of Anderson’s letter:

The form agreed upon with Mr. Duneka was carefully chosen—& of course departed from. It was, “too late, now, for a spring book, therefore postponed until autumn.” This was to save my face, & was my suggestion: I did not want the fact exposed that a book of mine had been (in effect) declined. The situation is not barren of humor: I had been doing my very best to show in print that the Xn-Scientist cult was become a power in the land—well, here was proof: it had scared the biggest publisher in the Union! [MTP]. Note: Christian Science

would not be published until 1907.

Muriel M. Pears finished her Apr. 16 to Sam, more of same [MTP].

April 21 Tuesday – The New York Times, p.9:

Elizabeth W. Lampton.

ST. LOUIS, Apr 21.—Miss Elizabeth W. Lampton, who for twenty-eight years had been a teacher in St. Louis schools, is dead of pneumonia. She was a cousin of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) and of Col. Henry Watterson, and a niece of the Rev. Dr. Frederick Pentecost. Her stories for children were widely known.

April 22 Wednesday – Charles S. Fairchild wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s May 14 reply [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Mrs. John P. Jones / Dinner, 7.30. Clara / 237 East 17th / Tel: 2817—18th” [NB 46 TS 14].

April 23 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dr. Wilson L. Hawkes in York, Maine, upset by being overcharged per visit.

I have just received testimony of a quality much better than your own, [see Apr. 6 from E.D. Twombly] that your regular charge is one dollar a visit. I gather from this that you have two prices—one for the summer visitor & the other for the old resident—a high price & a low price, the high price a robbery—robbery by custom. You might as rationally charge me four prices because I am bow-legged or white-headed, & excuse it on the plea that it is your “custom.” Self-invented custom is not a legal defence of crime, & I am not willing to submit to it. I shall expect you to return $96 to me at your early convenience—& I shall have then paid you for as many as 20 entirely unnecessary visits—visits which you well knew to be unnecessary.

I expect you to pay that $96, but not in the way of compromise. I shall not spare you a stripe less on that account when I am ready to settle with you in my way of settling with your sort—i.e., in print [MTP]. Note: the testimony may have come from the Seward family or from William Dean Howells.

Sam’s notebook: “See Ap. 4. / St. George Soc./ Shakesperes birthday I always liked his remark when he

picked up the garter: Dieu et droit qui mal y pense.—meaning Put none but Americans on guard to— /

Delmonico’s 6.30 (go at 8.30)” [NB 46 TS 14]. Note: this may be a whimsical remark he planned on using.

The St. George Society celebrated it’s 117^th anniversary banquet at Delmonico’s, President Robert H. Turie presiding. The New York Times, Apr. 19, p.7, “St. George’s Society Dinner” had announced Mark Twain would be a speaker at this event of Apr. 23, along with Gen. Baden-Powell, the Inspector General

of the British Army, Mayor Seth Low, Gen. Adna Romanza Chaffee                                 and Sir Percy

Sanderson. Fatout also lists this speaking event, but gives no particulars

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