Vol 3 Section 1112
paper, you see, & we have no bed for it but the one from the Hartford pink-&-blue room! No, you’ll not have to swear, Sue, I will stand by & do it for you.
This moment a letter from Jean. She is happy. Also a ’phone message from Miss Gordon to say Clara is bright & cheerful, & her cat more than that. Last night he performed to make a circus ashamed of itself.
I am in bed these 2 or three days—cold in the head. I returned to my ancient & infallible method: I starved it entirely out in 24 hours. And there is no cough—the bronchial tubes have escaped, for the first time since the spring of 1892—twelve years. / This is Sunday. A tragic day. / Lovingly, [MTP].
A. Silk wrote from Calcutta, India to Sam, enclosing a note from the Librarian of the United Service Club there, asking what the “Diary” [Adam’s] was—philosophical, religious, or both? [MTP].
November 7 Monday – Clara Clemens was back in N.Y.C. at Dr. Parry’s on 69th Street. The doctor had ordered complete isolation for her for one year, all except the nurse and doctor. Sam went to say a long goodbye [Nov. 9 to MacAlister; Nov. 10 or 11 to Doubleday].
Yuran writes of Clara’s removal to Norfolk, Conn. and gives us a letter dated Nov. 7, 1904 to her father. “In a letter with the heading ‘Clara goes into vanishment’… there is a handwritten note documenting that it was ‘written on the way to Norfolk, CT where Clara went for a rest cure.’ She wrote to her father:”
Dearest little Marcus
I feel like sending you one more fluttering goodbye before the bars are bolted. I don’t quite know why I call it fluttering except that a thing which flutters seems to be uncertain of its whereabouts and this may never leave this room. I believe though that it will and I want to make you realize that you will daily be in my thought this long winter and that I shall be hoping all the time that nothing will go wrong with you in the smallest ways. …
I particularly meant to ask you today if you were at work on the Congo State article and of course forgot that too. …
Au revoir Marcus dear. My deep love to you with a warm hug. Bambino [cat] lightly touches a lock of your hair with a forepaw and wishes you plenty of milk all winter—there goes his back up again; he’s most capricious. Again goodbye—Your loving Saphead [Yuran 7-8]. Note: the letter suggests Clara went to Norfolk shortly after seeing Dr. Parry. A P.S. “These pages you may notice are numbered.” It was a pet peeve of Sam’s to receive letters whose pages were unnumbered.
Andrew Carnegie wrote from NY, a note to Sam. “We’ll manage a quiet meeting between you & Morley—you’ll slip up to lunch maybe—that’s all right. I couldn’t fail to invite you to dinner but am not surprised you decide not to come…Ah my Friend the Millions, yes Millions who mourned with you…” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Livy & Andrew Carnegie were warm friends, & delightful together. Put this in my tin box. SLC.”
November 8 Tuesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam inscribed a copy of A Dog’s Tale to The Guild of St. Elizabeth: “To / The Guild of St. Elizabeth / from a friend. / Mark Twain / We cannot all be as good & sweet & lovely as a good dog, but we can all try. / M.T. / Nov. 8, 1904” [MTP].
Katy Leary, a cook, and a laundress moved into Sam’s new house on Fifth Ave. Sam planned to move in about a week later, with Isabel Lyon and Jean Clemens and the Italian servants to follow [Nov. 9 to MacAlister]. Note: Sam would be delayed on moving in till ca. Dec. 1.
November 9 Wednesday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister in London, sharing his plans for him and his staff to occupy the remodeled house on Fifth Avenue, and offhandedly mentioning what the Plasmon Co. had cost him:
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.