Vol 3 Section 0924

⁸⁶²                                                                        1903

 

The statements published in yesterday’s papers that Mark Twain and his family were still ill at his home, at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, were declared by Dr. Henry Moffat, of Yonkers, one of the physicians in attendance, to be wofully [sic] exaggerated.

“It is true,” said Dr. Moffat yesterday, “that since the beginning of the month, until quite recently, Mr. Clemens has been suffering more or less from a bad cold and an ulcerated tooth. This week, however, he spent a few days at the H.H. Rogers’s home, on Long Island Sound, and is now out and about, and as fit as a fiddle. The touch of bronchitis has left him.”

 

As to his family, who had all been ill, Dr. Moffat said Mrs. Clemens was well against, as was also her twenty-year-old daughter, Jean, who had been sick with measles. The doctor added that Miss Clara, who while nursing Miss Jean had contracted her malady, was now convalescent, and well on the road to recovery.

 

May 25 Monday – The New York Times ran a squib under “General Notes,” p.8:

 

At Mr. Henry H. Rogers’s request, Samuel L. Clemens, “Mark Twain,” is to preside and make an address at the opening exercises of the Old Home Week in Fair Haven, Mass., Mr. Rogers’s native town. Mr. Rogers is President of the Old Home Week Association. [Note: July 26-31, 1903; Sam was in Elmira the entire week, so plans were changed.]

 

Aurin F. Hill, architect in Boston, wrote to Sam, suggesting Bible passages and preaching to him that he

 

should “Consider the force of minds in a careful scientific manner.” The letter neither praises nor criticizes Sam’s articles on Christian Science [MTP].

 

E.G. Routzhan of the American League for Civic Improvement, Chicago wrote to ask Sam if he could persuade his publisher to allow a reprint of “Why Not Abolish It?” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “I believe Col. Harvey would do it if you write & ask him / SLC.”

 

May 26 Tuesday – In Fairhaven, Mass. H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, responding to his of May 20.

 

I received your letter of the 20th and since that time have seen in the papers accounts of the condition of your patients [NY Tribune of May 24]. I hope they are still improving.

….

We have had lovely weather and I am leading a simple Christian life, trying to get strong and fit. I wish you were young enough to be influenced religiously. It would I am sure be the making of you [MTP].

 

May 27 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “APH / Noon—Collier / 416 W. 13th / Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired. / Patriot & humbug are usually synonymous terms” [NB 46 TS 16].

 

Lawrence J. Anhalt wrote from NYC to ask Sam’s permission to reprint excerpts from Sam’s Buffalo Express articles, especially, “The Last Words of Great Men” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “If it was matter which I have not used in a book it is because I wanted the message of it to perish. / Send me the Last Words, & let me examine them.”

 

 

Sam’s notebook: “Dr. Ferrar [sic Farrar] / 1271 Bway / 11 am. / [Horiz. Line separator] / Plasmon meeting 1.30 / [Horiz. Line separator] / 142 E 33d. Robt. Reed. 5. ” [NB 46 TS 17]. Note: Dr. John Nutting Farrar (1839-1913), dentist, “Father of American Orthodontics.”

 

Robert J. Collier wrote to Sam.

 

(This is rough & tentative, but will furnish a working basis for negotiation.) Our proposition would shape itself somewhat like this: We would make entirely new plates of all your books and print in editions of five or ten thousand, with twenty or twenty-two volumes to the set, selling by subscription only for a dollar a volume.

 

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