Vol 3 Section 0845

“Tom Reed was frank, sympathetic, affectionate, sturdy, logical, articulate, and humorous. He made a speech at the author’s birthday dinner and suddenly died a few days later. It seems incredible that he is gone. The author will not divulge here in reminiscence but will simply praise Reed and say farewell” [taken from Gale 1: 579].

James Montague’s article/interview ran in the New York Evening Journal , p. 5. Budd: “SLC comments on several subjects such as fossils and Monte Carlo; illustrated by Homer Davenport [Budd, “Supplement”

ALR 16.1 (Spring 1983) 71]. Budd’s no. 188a. Also in MTCI 474-80.

December 21 Sunday – Sam also wrote a couple lines to Chatto & Windus: “My Xn Science man has backed out, and isn’t going to contribute to my book. I think he is right; it would offend his people, sure” [MTP].

Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Boston just as his family was starting for Saranac Lake, NY to share the holidays with their son, in a sanitarium with tuberculosis. Aldrich was concerned about Livy, but felt she would “throw off” the illness in time. “Frank Bartlett’s account of his daughter’s case, which seemed incurable, would cheer you up if you could hear it.” And on news of the death of Thomas B. Reed, he wrote: “I didn’t now Reed formally, but he must have been a lovable man” [MTP].

December 22 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

I know of the bereavement which has befallen your house, & I wish there was some way whereby a friend could assuage a friend’s pain when a sorrow smites him, so that I might help you now; but there is none, & I can only offer my sympathy, freely & from the heart.

I wish I could send good news from Mrs. Clemens’s sick-room, but there has been none to send, for four months & more. It is nervous prostration, with heart trouble, & I think no week has gone by without an alarm. The patient rallies again, then we breathe again—until the next. It is a ghastly life that we are leading, & there is but one good feature about it: that we do not despair, neither does she. It is a curious imprisonment for her: it is four months since she has had any news from outside her door, & two since I have seen her face [MTP]. Note: Aldrich’s son Charles was taken to the Adirondacks for treatment of his tuberculosis; he was not expected to live long but made it to 1904.

Sam’s notebook: “Miss Burbank, 73d Dinner—to meet an English anti-imperialist & a Harvard professor— (Brooks) / & Hobson of England./ See next page” [NB 45 TS 35]. Note: Sam mistook date of the dinner for this night; see Dec. 23 NB entry.

A.V.S. Anthony of Harper’s wrote to Sam. “Your article in the last Harper’s Weekly is the funniest thing I have seen about the man. It is so delicately appreciative, and is so overflowing with the kindest, friendly affection…” [MTP]. Sam wrote on the env. “from Anthony about my good-bye to Tom Reed”.

December 23 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Miss Burbank, 73d. (Clara will give me the address.) Dinner—7.30. / [Horiz. Line separator] / I ate that dinner to-night. By mistake I went down to eat it last night. Stayed all night at Mr. Rogers’s; meantime Jean was hit (with a chill, Clara was completing her watch in her mother’s room & there was no one able to force Jean to go to bed. [)] / As a result, she is pretty ill to-day. Fever & high temperature” [NB 45 TS 35].

Sam spent the night at H.H. Rogers’ home in N.Y.C. Meanwhile, Jean Clemens’ high fever developed into pneumonia [MTHHR 513n1]. Note: see Dec. 25 to Rogers.

In N.Y.C. William Dean Howells wrote a short note to Sam.

I am to give a lunch to Harry Harland on the 8th of January at Moretti’s spaghettery, 151 West 34th street. Will you come?—at one o’clock. Don’t lose this, and then pretend you were not asked. That Christian Science

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.