Stanley sat down on a high-backed chair, looking about the room, tapping the floor with a silver-headed cane, a gift from Lord Marlborough, as Dolly stood reading the note by the window.
19 May, 1901
West 10 Street, New York
Sir Henry — or would you prefer Sir Hank?
I bid you a respectful hello from the shores of your old digs.
In case you haven’t heard, I am a newly elected vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, and, given the powers of my august position, I have decided, for reasons of mutual interest and friendship, to invite you to this fair city to address the league at the Century Club on whatever range of subjects you so desire. I would be lying if I tried to conceal from you my truest motive, which is to publicize our good cause — yours is a name to be reckoned with, and any discourse, I am sure, would draw attention to our concerns. Lest you should feel that our adversarial opinions on many a matter would drown our friendship in venom, I assure you that you will be treated in the manner to which you have become accustomed — and paid well for your troubles to boot.
Of course, I hope you will forgive the impertinence of this invitation. We’ll put you up at the Waldorf-Astoria, take you around town to mingle with my literary crowd, and, should you decide to honor me with your and your family’s presence, I would be happy for you to stay as long as you like in my town house if that would suit you. Whatever you should decide, we send you and Dolly all our love.
Yours in friendship,
Samuel L. Clemens
IT WAS DOLLY who made the reply, citing innumerable projects awaiting them at the estate and expressing the wish that she and her mother might make a trip to New York without Stanley, if that would interest him, but for the time being, it was Stanley’s failing health that made all the difference. He added his own note to the same effect:
Dear Samuel,
The plain fact is this: In another time I would do it, but, old friend, my health prevents me.
I send you my devotion.
STILL, A YEAR LATER, there came yet another invitation from Clemens, and this one, greatly intriguing Stanley, was very hard for him to turn down.
Dear Stanley,
I send you this brief note to mention a leisure cruise of the Caribbean I will be making with my good friend (and financial savior) Henry Rogers in April, to which you are herewith summarily invited. We are planning to head out next month. I mention this because it is our plan to make Cuba a part of our route, and I thought you and I, sailing there, might find it of quite special interest. I am making this journey sans Livy, who is not at all well. (In fact, as I have written to Dolly, I am only allowed to see her for brief periods of time, so I guess I will not be missed if I am gone for some few weeks.) I know you are nailed down to your estate these days, but do let me know if I can tempt you. It would be a nice way to pass the time.
Regards,
Sam
Stanley truly lamented that he could not go; a fall while roaming the estate had badly twisted his ankle, and, in any case, he never knew when he would be visited by an attack of gastritis. He had become afraid to leave the estate, as if it were keeping him alive. And yet it took him several days to make up his mind.
April 1, 1902
Havana, Cuba
Dear Stanley,
A note from Havana — en route to Nassau and New York — to say once more that I wish you had been able to join us. But here I will report my journey. We sailed down to Santiago de Cuba (port city on southeastern tip of island, nestled in a bowl between two mountain ranges), a fine and most ornate place; we spent a day there, and with my very distinguished party were given a first-class tour and taken around to the most interesting sights — the old cathedral, etc., with a side trip to San Juan Hill, where Teddy Roosevelt made his famous charge and where stands the Peace Tree, where US general William Rufus Shafter accepted the Spanish general Toral’s surrender in July of 1898. Aside from a little sun-baked Spanish fortress at the top of the hill, along with some pieces of eighteenth-century ordnance, there wasn’t much to see. Nevertheless, this was the place where the Spaniards defended against the charge made by the Rough Riders. There were many florid trees about — the air perfumed — and yet what most lingered was the sense that the hill was a roadway of death, of lives wasted. Of ghosts. For as the Rough Riders advanced up the hill they were met with a fusillade of bullets from the Spanish trenches around the fort, a slaughter on both sides ensuing. You can feel the dead around you, as you do at places like Gettysburg.
Later, we were hosted at a dinner at our hotel by some of the more distinguished persons of the city: On hand was an admiral who gave a vivid description of the naval battle that had taken place between the US fleet and the Spaniards. To make a long story short, the Spaniards, while trying to escape the Santiago harbor, were trapped between two flanks and bombarded; they lost four hundred men, with many more wounded, while the United States only suffered one casualty — what a score! And so there it is: In the ocean, along the coast east and west of Santiago, lay the husks of numerous Spanish ships, the bones of their men at the bottom of those blue and beautiful waters.
I would have liked to have visited more places — at my age, I don’t think I will ever have the chance again — but, as with everything in my life, I was locked into a schedule of receptions, press interviews, etc. As I was traveling in the company of Mr. Rogers and T. B. Reed, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, the fluff of much of that business fell equally on them, to my relief, though I ended up drinking too much rum, attributable mainly to intermittent periods of boredom and resentment. (You know what I mean.)
Most interesting was our cruise over to Havana. From our yacht, the Kanawha, as we came along the south coast toward Matanzas — remember it? — I could not wait to see that Moorish city’s pearly buildings glowing in the distance, but as we passed its harbor, I saw that much of it had been destroyed. There were ruins everywhere, a result of one of our superior fleet’s bombardments during the war. That depressed me: I nearly came to tears with the unique melancholy that old folks like me get when they see things so dreadfully changed. But then we passed on, along the stretch of coastline toward Havana, with its many coves and beaches and harbors — which you once likened to the snout of a crocodile — and lo and behold, as we approached the city of Havana itself, whatever feelings of melancholy I had were amplified tenfold! For looking out, I saw the mangled, twisted, rusting carcass of the battleship Maine rising out of the water — it was dark and ugly and protruding in so many directions that I was reminded of a dying crab: a strange sight.