November 6 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Eleanor V. Hutton (Mrs. Laurence Hutton).
I think it was a perfectly darling time I had in your delightful house. There’s a notable difference between the unholy cheer of that abandoned place & the stillness & solitude of this. Clara being one of the nurses, I get hardly a glimpse of her, some days. Of Jean also I get glimpses only: she stays up on the third floor & works at wood-carving, or outside prowling in the fresh air—a kind of air which I can’t stand because it costs so much exertion to turn out & get it.
Mrs. Clemens remains as she has been these many weeks—feeble, bedridden, bone-weary, but in the main cheerful; for she has plenty of fortitude & staying-power—it is a large part of her character. They still don’t let me see her [MTP].
Sam also wrote to James H. Hyde per Isabel V. Lyon.
I shall be ashamed to arrive late. I shall be there early if I can.
If you have to put me in a printed program, please let me follow the others.
If I am not in a printed program I shall prefer to get up after the man that needs the most correcting [MTP]. Note: MTHL 2 : 749n2 reveals “Mr. Hyde” to be the above, and an arranger with Chauncey M. Depew of a dinner on Nov. 15 for Jules M. Cambon, French ambassador to the U.S., who was leaving for a post in Madrid. Sam was reported as speaker but did not attend due to Livy’s condition.