January 18 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Daniel Carter Beard.
I cannot tell you how much I like the pictures; I think you have not made better nor bitterer ones, nor any that were redder with the bloody truth. As to the book, I cannot make an estimate, for I was not able to steal time for a careful & searching examination, uninterrupted, of even a single chapter, and necessarily I would not permit myself to have an opinion without that.
I leave, Monday, for a week in interior New York—not rest, but to get seclusion from mails, newspapers, visits, & the other devourers of a harassed man’s time, so that I can in tranquility concentrate the whirling rags of my mind & get a safe & sure start upon a long, long satire in the which my heart is engaged, & on which I broke ground to my satisfaction last night, breaking out of bed in the ghostly small hours to do the first chapter & fire the train.
Sam also mentioned losing Ernest Howard Crosby’s address, then finding it. Crosby and Beard were active in the N.Y. Anti-Imperialist League [MTP]. Note: the “long, long satire” is not identified.
Sam also wrote to Frederick A. Duneka: “I haven’t read the proof, but have examined your marginals. I have suggested ‘Inadequate Atonement’—I found none of the others improvable” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to William Dean Howells.
“This has been the most prominent object in the study for a week or two, and visible, aggressively visible from all points of the compass, and all that time I have been wrecking the whole damn place for it. If it had been thirty yards square, b’gosh I never should have found it” [MTHL 2: 740]. Note: Sam was referring to Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s late Dec. letter.
Sam also wrote to Mr. Seaman.
“I thank you ever so much, but I shall doubtless be on the other side of the world at that time, with my family. Shall be, if our plans do not fail us. I hope you will have a good time” [MTP]. Note: Seaman is not further identified.
Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell.
Can’t go to New Haven.
Shall go to Hartford per 4 p.m. train.
Shall transact my business next morning, & leave for Hartford during the day.
We leave here for Elmira day after to-morrow [Jan. 20], and return Jan. 27.
Love to all! [MTP].
Sam’s notebook: “ Women’s University Club. Its first reception in its new clubhouse, 13 E. 24th— 8 to 11 p.m. Mrs. Arthur H. Scribner will call for us at Grand Central—(we leave here at 7.27 & arrive there at 7.55. Her address: 10.W. 43d.” [NB 42 TS 2].