October 29 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a longer letter to Beatrice M. Benjamin.
Dear Beatrice: / It is unbearable to think of you, so old & dear a friend, getting married & I not there. I shall be if the doctor permits. But a person can’t count upon doctors; they would not let me go to New York a fortnight ago to see Clara off when she thought she was going to sail for Europe. Any fatigue, any exertion disables me for a day or two; so I stay in the house all the time, & haven’t been out of the yard for three months.
All this long time I have been trying to realize that it is you that are going to be married; but I don’t succeed, To me there are three of you—& each of you a quite separate & distinct person, & unrelated to the other two. I see you clearest and know you best as a little chap; later I got acquainted with a girl of 14 at Fairhaven bearing your name; & five or six years later still I got acquainted with this other one: this tall one, this slender one that has inherited the quite sufficient beauty of the others, & added to it. And so there is a confusion in my mind: I know it is you that is going to be married, but don’t know which one. That is I don’t realize....realize....I...well,I....
My mind is wandering, If all three of you... . no, that would be unlawful, it would be bigamy. If... . if. ... well, it seems to me....
I shall have a relapse, now, & it will be your fault, Beatrice. Always, these days, when I try to work my intellect I have a relapse.
Well, anyway, I hope you will be happy forever, dear, all four of you. This includes Mr. Pratt, that abnormally fortunate man. / Always affectionately / ... [MTP]. Note: see Oct. 27 to Benjamin, and also to Duneka.
Sam also wrote to David W. Seaver.
Dear Sir:
I remember your uncle very well, & very pleasantly, too, but I do not remember about the book.
I doubt if the book would interest me, but I shall be glad to see you if you will look in & give me a chance when you are passing. / Very truly yours / ... [MTP].
Possibly this day Sam also replied to. Arthur Conan Doyle.
My dear Sir: / I have received your book, “The Crime of the Congo,” with Leopold of Belgium’s heartless trade-mark printed on the back of it—the photograph of a little black boy with a hand & a foot cut off for use as evidence to Leopold’s representatives that certain of his rules for the government of the natives have been duly enforced. I do not mean that this is his confessed trademark, I only mean that this is the one that is registered in heaven & is the real recognized right one right one, the honest one, the veracious one Would it be uncourteous in me to hopr the king is going to wear it in hell? Would it? I do not wish to be uncourteous I would not [canceled page missing] trademark, anything will do. Let him choose for himself when he gets there, the one the Congo State the one he uses officially when he is disguised as the Congo State is pleasanter to look at & more innocent to the eye, but is misleading.
It seems curious that for about thirty years Leopold & the Belgians have been daily & nightly committing upon the helpless Congo natives all the hundred kinds of atrocious crimes known to the heathen savage & the pious inquisitor without rousing Christendom to a fury of generous indignation; all Christendom: statesmen, journalists, philanthropists, women, children. Even the Church, even the pulpit, even the rest of the cemeteries [MTP].
Thomas Power O’Connor wrote on New Hoffman House notepaper to Sam. “Of course I must see you before I leave America, but at the present moment, however, and for a fortnight to come I will be very busy every day and night. At the end of that time I shall try to have a weeks’ freedom in New York and will then run down one day...I was glad to see the marriage of your daughter. .” [MTP]. “Ansd”
Miss Helen Roberts from Sheffield, England, wrote a fan letter to Sam. She was “a confirmed Baconian” MTP].