Vol 3 Section 1079
Some time ago I asked to be permitted to collect for you all the obituary notices referring to the late Mrs.
S.L. Clemens.
I now beg to inform you that I have collected 307 notices which I shall be glad to send you on receipt of $15.00.
If you desire, I could have these clippings mounted on the best imported plate paper and afterwards bound into a scrapbook….I promised to do the work in a first class manner and at a reasonable price [MTP].
On or just after this day Sam wrote “Send $15” to Isabel V. Lyon in response to Albert Romeike’s above letter and billing of this date [MTP].
July 21 Thursday – In Tyringham, Mass. Isabel Lyon wrote for Clara Clemens to Martha G. Pond thanking her for her “sweet letter of sympathy.” Clara had been “utterly prostrate” since Livy’s death and so Isabel answered with thanks [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mary B. Cheney in South Manchester, Conn.
She was indeed what you have said, dear Mrs. Cheney, & I wish she could know that you have said it. I can imagine the pride & the pleasure it would give her, for she held you in peculiar reverence, & regarded your friendship for her as a great honor done her. A whisper of commendation from you was more to her than a pæan of praise from another. She stood in just this relation to no other friend, indeed to no other person. To her you were a being apart, & lifted above the common human level. You planted a seed once which blossomed and gave out a grateful fragrance for her all the months while her life continued. It was a letter in praise of Susy’s little play. It was never out of reach of her hand for sixteen years till she died. It is in a little locked box wherein she kept her precious things—things which have now been sacred these eight years. It was always by her, it was familiar with her tears, it was by her when her tears were dried & she sank to rest in the Great Peace.
She was beautiful & benignant in death, & I knew how Sir Ector felt & thought when he uttered his moving lament over his dead brother: “Ah, Launcelot, there thou liest, * * * thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bore shield; & thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; & thou wert the truest lover for a sinful man that ever loved woman; & thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with sword;
thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; & thou wert the meekest man & the gentlest that ever ate in hall with ladies.”
* * *
It pleased her so when Colonel Cheney invited me out to South Manchester to dinner when I was in Hartford last year, & it grieved her that I did not go. But I did not know how to leave her a night in those threatening & pathetic days.
The ruined family salute you & yours in love [MTP].
Sam also sent the “TO WHOM THIS SHALL COME” note to Elsie L. Leslie in Mentone, Calif., and added, “To Elsie
Leslie Winter, with warm regards” [MTP]. Note: postmarked July 21; addressed in Lyon’s hand.
Sam also sent the “TO WHOM THIS SHALL COME” note to Pamela A. Moffett at the Crestview Sanitarium in Greenwich, Conn., and added, “Dear Sister: It is not likely that we shall have the heart to stir from here. We take no interest in life, we are hurt beyond healing. /Lovingly / Sam / Lee, Mass, July 21” [MTP]. Note:addressed in Lyon’s hand.
Sam also replied to Yale professor, Thomas R. Lounsbury:
I know you are right. I know that my loss will never be made up to me in the slightest. The family’s relation to her was peculiar & unusual, & could not exist toward another. Our love for her was the ordinary love, but added to it was a reverent & quite conscious worship. Perhaps it was nearly like a subjects’s feeling for his sovereign—a something which he does not have to reason out, or nurse, or study about, but which
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.