August 28 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Ida Langdon in Gloucester, Mass.
It is lovely, perfectly lovely of you to give us that splendid invitation, & it would delight me clear beyond the limits of expression if circumstances & God privileged us to accept it, for I should have a noble good time there—& a fruitful one, too; for in the protection of your roof I could write unpersecuted & unpestered by undesired intruders, & could finish my book. But Livy, whose thanks are as warm as mine, bows to circumstances & God, & in her belief they require her to go Tarrytowning or some such business, & she feels obliged to submit.Whereas I take chances, now that I am converted, & if I had the chance I would pull out for your house at the designated time, for sure.
Livy still has ups & downs. She was down, yesterday, & bad; & she longed so for Sue to stay that Sue stopped packing-up for Gloucester & did her the great kindness desired. She is better to-day.
With all of the household’s love for you all [MTP]. Note: Charles & Ida Langdon were summering in Gloucester.
Sam sent a telegram to H.H. Rogers: “Thank you without limit will write you my later Scheme Clemens” [MTHHR 501]. Sam also began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he finished on Aug. 29
To-day I’ve struck it!
I have found that I can get a special car, with a bed in it & various accommodations, which will take us aboard at York Harbor station & land us in Elmira without change.
It will travel over various roads, & it may be that …[Sam left off abruptly here] [MTHHR 501-2].
Sam’s notebook includes the following story, inserted out of date order, between July 2 and July 7, 1902:
Thurs, Aug. 28, dined at the d’Este Villa, York Harbor, Maine, guest of John Cadwalader of Phila. An incident related.
Chief Justice John Marshall died in Phila in 1835, aged 80. Meeting of bar asked for $1 from each lawyer in America. Dollars came in fast at first, then interest perished, with $900 collected. The trustee invested it in safe securities; re-investing when they fell in; always investing the little dabs of interest. He died in 1880, & Mr. Cadwalader was executor of the old lawyers will. Among a carefully-kept mass of ancient papers he found everything connected with the matter (now long ago forgotten). He was able to put his hand at once upon every dollar. The $900 had grown to $45,000!
No one knew of the secret. At the next important meeting of the bar Mr. C. rose to reveal it, but Mr. Dougherty rose at the same time; in deference to his great fame & character, Mr. C. yielded the floor. D. said—
“Mr. Chariman there is no monument to the greatest legal light, &c, while there are monuments to inconsequential men. Before another word is uttered here, we must remove this stain. The bar of America must at once raise money, etc.” (Applause)
Then Mr. C. got up & told his beautiful secret [NB 45 TS 20]. Note: John Cadwalader (1843-1925), Philadelphia attorney, from a long line of Cadwaladers, including several prior John Cadwalader’s, including Gen. John Cadwalader, who led one of Washington’s divisions that crossed the Delaware in the Revolutionary War.
Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote another picture postcard to Sam, this of a snowy scene in Zurich. “we have luckily not seen as much snow as that, but a little bit of it has driven us away from the Rigi. We came here to warm ourselves again and I send you, from Zurich, all best wishes…” [MTP].