January 1 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Cable address of Leigh Hunt: Pukchin Chemulpo Corea / Joe Jefferson Dundreary’s dogs” [NB 44 TS 2]. Note: Leigh S.J. Hunt (1854-1933), educator and publisher, by this time had become a multi-millionaire through tax-free gold mining concessions in Korea.
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
56 Consolidated Gas of NY 12.81
At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to Augustus T. Gurlitz, forwarding Justus S. North’s Dec. 28, 1900 letter about the bogus Library of Wit and Humor. North had accused Sam of “procuring money under false pretenses.” Sam to Gurlitz: “Jan. 1 Just received. That disastrous book seems to be traveling, you see” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Eleanor V. Hutton about a reading he’d agreed to give at Princeton University.
No, my idea was, to read to the students on the strenuous condition that no reference to it should get into print—no handbills, no posters, no ads. of any kind. I’m not in the lecture field, & could not afford to have it known that I was giving a reading.
My dread of its getting into print was so great that I got Clara to write & ask Mr. Marquand if he thought I could postpone the promised reading until late Spring—for then if it got into print the lecture season would be over…. [MTP].
Note: This about Allan Marquand (1853-1924) from Princeton’s website: “the first professor of art at Princeton and founder of the Department of Art and Archaeology, presented his personal art library of 5,000 volumes to the University. He began collecting books on the Italian Renaissance, classical archaeology, and medieval art as early as 1879.”
Sam also wrote to Ella Trabue Smith, his second cousin on his mother’s side:
This is a funny postoffice. Daily it sends me batches of misdirected letters; then, about once a week, it prints upon all such, “No such street in New York” & sends them on their travels. Yours has been traveling 22 days—I don’t know where. Pamela lives 120 blocks west of me; Annie lives near her. I do not see them often—the distance is too great. Annie has a daughter in college, & two grown sons. Orion died 3 years ago. His widow still lives in Keokuk.
Sam continued that he was glad to be home again even though housekeeping was “more troublesome & difficult than it was in European cities.” It seemed to him that all he did was answer mail, and confessed that one day he wrote 31 letters and his wife and daughters wrote 31 more. He was going to send her his photograph, and one of his daughters, but there was none of Livy and she wouldn’t sit for one [MTP]. Note:
See Vol. I&II for other entries on Smith.
Sam also replied to the Dec. 29 questions of Irving S. Underhill:
“No, the Adam Diary will not be published in my American collection [Uniform Edition] right away, I think. But if it should be published right away, that would not injure the Doubleday volume, since it would appear only as a small part of one of my volumes & would be sold in a set of 22 volumes (or 23)” [MTP].
Ernest Hendrie wrote from London to Sam that he’d finished a play (on Aug. 7, 1900 Hendrie had sought dramatization rights for the Hadleyburg story). Hendrie’s writing is not always clear but he referred to Charles Frohman who had “a very favorable opinion” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Hendrie has finished it”. See also Nov. 17, 1906, Mar. 20 and Apr. 9, 1907.