October 18 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok. “I wish I could, but I can’t, as I am barred by existing contracts” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to John Y. MacAlister.
Mrs. Clemens is going to stay with us a good while yet, the doctors say: so to-day I have returned the Amended Obituaries to the Harper’s & told them to publish it in the Weekly about Nov. 20—ten days before my birthday. You can do the same in London if you like. The birthday is Sunday, Nov. 30; there’s to be a birthday banquet in New York, & I hope to have a bright obituary or two to read there & comment on [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, asking him to look in the safe and send “a bundle of MS entitled ‘Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven’ & express it to me.”
The madam talks to Clara & the nurse—although strictly forbidden by the doctor to do it—& she is determined to build an addition at Tarrytown. We have the plans, & it will not cost less than $30,000. But I won’t consent to put a dollar there that the Hartford house doesn’t furnish. She’ll have to take $30,000 for that house if she can’t do any better. (I myself would take it in a minute.)
I like the idea of the auction.
If the house were pulled down—oh hell, the subject is a kind of maddening one [MTP].
Sam also replied to Theodore Weld Stanton who requested a visit (not extant). “Any time, now, that suits your convenience. But better telephone, first, to make sure” [MTP].
Sam’s notebook recorded another instance of Post Office negligence, the object of one of his crusades: “The suicide, Ida C. Craddock, announced it by mail 7.30 p.m. (posted it). U. Sam delivered it 13 hours later—too late. Should have done it in 1 ½ h; the W.U. [Western Union] could do it in 2. / The U.S. marks delivery time—the W.U. dasn’t” [NB 45 TS 31].
Note: Ida C. Craddock (1857-1902), writer and advocate of free speech and women’s rights, had an obsession with the occult to the point of being seen as a crackpot (she claimed to have an ongoing marital relationship with an angel named Soph, and called herself a “Priestess and Pastor of the Church of Yoga.” She was the subject of a Federal indictment for distributing Right Marital Living via the U.S. Mail. She committed suicide on Oct. 16 after writing a letter to her mother, who had tried to have her institutionalized.
Frank Bliss wrote to Sam about “Harper obstructions” with possible royalties after “reprinting of the ‘Library of Humor’” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Oct. 18/02. I suggested that he make the man put a price on the book, & then name a royalty.” Bliss did not date his scrawled, nearly illegible letter (unlike him), possibly written in a hurry. Entanglement of the contracts made conflict between the two firms inevitable.
H.D. Thompson for the Princeton Inauguration Committee wrote to Sam with directions for being “in the Reading Room of Murray Hall, in full academic costume, not later than twenty minutes past ten” on Oct. 25 [MTP].