Vol 3 Section 1009

2 little gold buckles for Jean

Shell sleeve-buttons for me…

Gold buckle for Livy.

Studs for Livy.

Pamela, Sam, Livy & I to act withOrion in distribution of Ma’s effects [MTP].

Andrew Langdon wrote from the Grand Continental Hotel, Cairo, Egypt to Sam. “Your valued note of 6th was awaiting my return…I am sorry enough to hear that Livy is so poorly—Do write me again of her. I will hope for good results…” He was sailing the next day for Constantinople and hoped to reach Paris about Feb.15, then sail for home at the end of the month; he did not expect to go to Florence on this trip [MTP].

Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford to Sam, pasting a short clipping at the top of the first page, which announced his presiding at a funeral (deceased not identified): “Rev. Joseph Twichell, D.D., of Hartford, Conn. one of the most famous after-dinner speakers in America.” Joe wrote:

“How’s the above for booming a funeral? For the uncommon violation of the proprieties the newspaper boys do beat all. In this case they intended well. They meant to get the deceased a good house. But imagine my reservations on reading the advertisement, and subsequently on appearing before the audience! –and seeing ‘Now we are going to have something!’ written on their faces.”

Joe wrote of the “unconquerable tenacity of Livy’s hold on life,” and recalled “Old Burton’s once saying to a fellow who had suffered and survived the assault of no end of maladies, ‘You are like a raft. Much of the time you are half under water, and some of the time three quarters, but all the same you float: you never sink.’ That surely describes Livy” [MTP].

January 26 Tuesday – John R. Carpenter, executor of Mollie Clemens’ estate wrote again, this time with a copy of Mollie’s bequests to Sam, and the family, as well as a list of Ma’s things sent in May 1900 to Annie Moffett Webster, which included a “rosebud toilet seat” [MTP].

Edward St. John Fairman, in Florence, sent verses to Sam, including two to Andrew Carnegie [MTP].

James F. Mallinckrodt, “modelmaker & mechanician” in St. Louis, wrote to Sam. “I see you have sold all your works, past and future, body and soul. Harper is the devil. If you get into his heaven you will have all hell to reform. I wouldn’t like to have your job” [MTP].

January 27 Wednesday – In his Feb. 17 to Duneka Sam wrote that his sketch “Sold to Satan” was mailed to Duneka on this day, according to Isabel Lyon’s notebook.

January 28 Thursday – H.A. Lorberg wrote from Portsmouth, Ohio to Sam, sending a photo for Mark Twain’s autograph [MTP].

Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote to Sam, assuring him that he never owed her a letter; that if she wanted to read him she could always get the Harper’s from her friends in NY; that she was horrified by the fire tragedy in Chicago. She also asked how to get an American book to translate into French [MTP]. Note: see Jan. 1 entry on Iroquois Theater fire, Chicago.

January 28 ca. – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam replied to Edward Rimbault Dibdin (b. 1853), of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (curator from May 1, 1904 to 1918, replacing Charles Dyall).

Dibdin wrote on Jan. 24; see entry.

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