Mark Twain's Letters — Volume 6 (1907-1910) eBook

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sp;                                             Nov. 30, ’08. 
Dear Mr. Wood,—­The beautiful mantel was put in its place an hour ago, and its friendly “Aloha” was the first uttered greeting my 73rd birthday received.  It is rich in color, rich in quality, and rich in decoration, therefore it exactly harmonizes with the taste for such things which was born in me and which I have seldom been able to indulge to my content.  It will be a great pleasure to me, daily renewed, to have under my eye this lovely reminder of the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean, and I beg to thank the Committee for providing me that pleasure. 
                    Sincerely Yours,
                              S. L. Clemens.

XLVII

Letters, 1909.  To Howells and others.  Life at Stormfield.  Copyright extension.  Death of jean Clemens

Clemens remained at Stormfield all that winter.  New York was sixty miles away and he did not often care to make the journey.  He was constantly invited to this or that public gathering, or private party, but such affairs had lost interest for him.  He preferred the quiet of his luxurious home with its beautiful outlook, while for entertainment he found the billiard afternoons sufficient.  Guests came from the city, now and again, for week-end visits, and if he ever was restless or lonely he did not show it.

Among the invitations that came was one from General O. O. Howard asking him to preside at a meeting to raise an endowment fund for a Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.  Closing his letter, General Howard said, “Never mind if you did fight on the other side.”

To General O. O. Howard: 

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sp;                              Stormfield, Redding, Connecticut,
          
                                                  Jan, 12, ’09. 
Dear general Howard,—­You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking me to preside, and it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln Memorial University.  The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of all the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln, serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people.

I hope you will meet with complete success, and I am sorry I cannot be there to witness it and help you rejoice.  But I am older than people think, and besides I live away out in the country and never stir from home, except at geological intervals, to fill left-over engagements in mesozoic times when I was younger and indiscreeter.