May 10 Sunday – In N.Y.C. William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
Yes, this is true glory, as we used to imagine it; not the tawdry counterfeit we have experienced. How enviable those newspaper men and women are, and at this point on the wrong slope of the hill, how incredible!—I am awfully sorry for you, you poor fellow, and the first bad day, when I can’t walk Mrs. Howells into the Park, I am coming out to see you again. What you need all the time is some good appreciative contemporary to swear to.— Just think of that nice fellow who sent me the telepathic story about the sumac, turning into an unfortunate writer, and unloading a sheaf of rejected contributions onto me! It was bitter. But I think one—about the early war days in Nevada would have interested you. It was how they ran out of Va. City a gang of desperadoes who came to break up a Union meeting….I heard a funny story about a clerical Potter (father of the Bishop, I believe) who got married four times. At one of the weddings, one of the young ones bleated for some unknown cause, in the church, and an older sister explained, “Oh, he always cries that way when papa gets married.” —Talking of Potter reminds me of your architect, and your house. Is it really true that you’ve sold it? I congratulate you conditionally. / Yours ever…[MTHL 771-2]. Note: Bishop Henry Codman Potter (1835-1908), liberal Episcopal clergyman, was a friend of Sam’s, “celebrated for his attacks on vice and corruption in New York City under Tammany”; he was among the fusionist forces that elected Seth Low NYC Mayor in 1900. Edward T. Potter was the architect of the Clemenses Hartford house [n3-4].