Vol 3 Section 0478
In N.Y.C. Sam wrote a postcard to Julius Chambers (1850-1920), author, reporter, managing editor of the
N.Y. Herald and the N.Y. World:
“Yours of two weeks ago [not extant] has just reached me—belated. But no harm is done—I had no prepared speech worded, but only skeletonised” [MTP: Swann Galleries catalog, 7 June 2000, No. 1863, Item 228]. Note: this is catalogued as an “unknown place,” but to have received Chambers’ belated note (not extant), Sam would have had to return to the City.
November 20 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Grape-fruit. prepare it / 19th Cent. Club / Sherry’s, 5th Ave & 44th.
8.30” [NB 43 TS 29].
At 14 W. 10th Street in New York Sam wrote to John Kendrick Bangs.
My wife has Aldrich’s speech locked in her desk, & she is out; but when she returns it will be mailed to
you.
I am glad to have the other boys say things, but I’ll keep still & let on to know nothing of the pleasant conspiracy [MTP]. Note: See Nov. 13 entry.
Sam also wrote a short postcard note in German to Poultney Bigelow in care of John Bigelow, N.Y.C.
“Man sagt du bist schon zu Hause angekommen alretty. Sprecht! Wenn es Wahrheit sei, Komme ich gleich eine Visit an Dich abzustatten.” Translated: “People say that you have arrived at home already. Speak! If it is the truth, I’ll come over at once to pay you a visit” [MTP]. Note: Translation compliments of Holger Kersten
Sam also wrote to George B. Harvey.
If the rush ever does let up I am coming down to my pal’s den & finish & sign. Meantime, let us add the 100-year book [autobiography] to the arrangements again, & make it definite; for I am going to dictate that book to my daughter, with the certainty that as I go along I shall grind out chapters which will be good for magazine & book to-day, & not need wait a century.
Sam also wrote that he had explained to Van Benthuysen and McClure’s representatives that he couldn’t write for them and they were satisfied. The Century needed “one little humorous 5,000-word tale for $2,500” [MTP]. Note: William C. Van Benthuysen (1855-1903), editorial manager of the New York World (1898-1903). Harvey had a summer house in Deal, N.J.
Sam also wrote to Thomas R. Lounsbury (1838-1915), American literary historian and critic, from 1871
to 1906 a professor of English at Yale. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I am ‘full-up’ as the ’bus-conductor says—for some months” [MTP]. Note: the two men amicably differed on James Fenimore Cooper; Lounsbury’s 1882 Life of James Fenimore Cooper was favorable to the author, which Sam took to mean that Lounsbury hadn’t actually read Cooper.
Eleanor V. Hutton wrote to Sam, enclosing a copy of her letter to Mrs. Ida E. Chamberlin and Helen Keller’s appeal. She’d rec’d a letter from H.H. Rogers same date enclosing a “remarkable” letter he’d rec’d from Mrs. Chamberlin. “He says he shall do nothing until he hears from me. I enclose a copy of my reply to him.” Eleanor was involved in them campaign to support Helen Keller [MTP].
Sam dined at the Nineteenth Century Club at Sherry’s Restaurant, N.Y.C. and spoke to the subject of the evening, “The Disappearance of Literature.” Fatout introduces Sam’s remarks:
At the Nineteenth Century Club dinner the chairman, Dr. Elgin R.L. Gould, said that when he was in Germany he had had to apologize profusely for the liberties a certain American literary man had taken
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.