February 12 Monday – At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam replied to Samuel G. Blythe (incoming letter not extant).

Objections? Indeed no. On the contrary I shall be glad.

I shall now lay for the young man who called the other day, & who seemed to know a great many things—& to lack delicacy in some little degree: for, while smoking my bad cigars & warming himself at my good fire he suddenly up & said, without any humane & softening preparations for the remark, that my Christian Science article had cost the Cosmopolitan 10,000 subscribers [MTP].

Note: Samuel George Blythe (1868-1947) was for this one year managing editor of Cosmopolitan, but for most of his life he was a newspaperman, columnist and political writer, who was friendly with US presidents from Grover Cleveland to F.D.R. He had also been managing editor of Sam’s old paper, the Buffalo Express in 1897 at the ripe old age of 25. Blythe authored at least sixteen books. He is not listed in Gribben.

Sam then sent his regards to John Brisben Walker of the Cosmopolitan [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Will M. Clemens.

I am glad, & very much obliged to you. Whatever Sam Moffett approves I am sure I should approve.

If you mean a photo which has not been printed, I am not sure that there is one—except one the control of which has gone out of my hands in America [MTP: University Archives catalog, No. 9, Item 41]. Note: Sam added that he found the one he was thinking of and it had been printed in McClure’s.

Joe Twichell wrote to Sam.

Your last letters have been interesting “to a degree” (what an odd and absurd expression that is for a superlative, and yet I see writers of fame using it) but the feature of solar radiance in them is the news that you are coming home.

Joe revealed that Ward Cheney died in the Philippines on Jan. 7 as a result of wounds received in action; He would preside at his funeral the “latter part of the week.” He advised he was sending a medical journal of “disagreeable interest” on osteopathy. He was also sending Livy some photos of young Harmony, his daughter the nurse, and one of himself. He pasted two clippings from the Hartford Times on Henry C. Robinson’s mortal illness. Others had passed or were dying:

Your old neighbor Charles Smith was buried last Thursday; and your neighbor Fellows—a gentleman whom I greatly esteem, as I did Mr. Smith—is apparently soon to follow. So the world melts away around us.

By the way Milly Cheney Learned…gave me in South Manchester the other day an account of her little visit with you, which had evidently been a great pleasure to her and her husband. [MTP]. Note: no record of Milly’s visit with Sam was found, but Livy wrote to her on Feb. 25.