February 26 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean now at the Unkeway Farm in Babylon, Long Island, N.Y.
You dear Jean, I was glad to hear from you. I have a photograph of your house, & I think it is most attractive. For your sake I hope it is as pleasant as it looks.
That poor old Geronimo! I am glad his grand old patriot heart is at peace, no more to know wrong & insult at the hands of the Christian savage.
I am enjoying these days; for after long idleness I am at work with the pen again—on an article of considerable length: throwing bricks at Shakespeare; bricks which have lain piled in repose for fifty years; it has been just that long that I have held the belief that he didn’t write a line of the Plays & Poems that pass under his name. I think he & Mother Eddy are just about a pair—a pair of humbugs.
Miss Lyon has gone to Hartford for ten days, sick. She went three days ago.
Mary Lawton is here for a few days. She has got the leading part in a fine play, Clara says, & will appear in it next winter.
Dear me, how the wind does howl & rage around this house the past three days and nights! It is as good & fine as being in mid-Atlantic in a tempest. The place is well & happily named.
Jean, the idea is that these formidable new war-inventions will make war impossible by & by—but I doubt it. Man was created a bloody animal, & I think he will always thirst for blood & will manage to have it. I think he is far & away the worst animal that exists; & the only untamable one. The wild creatures the President is going to Africa to hunt are very much his superiors in morals, conduct, disposition & respectability, I think.
With love & many kisses— / Father [MTP]. Note: Geronimo, born Goyahkla, Goyaalé: “one who yawns” (1829-1909), chief of the Chiricahua Apache, died on Feb. 17; he fought for decades against both Mexico and the U.S. The Mexicans named him Geronimo.