October 7 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam sent a telegram and then wrote a letter to Helen Schuyler Allen at the Hotel St. Andrew, N.Y.C. The telegram simply said: “Will write, wait for letter.”
Here is his letter:
Helen dear, I am so disapointed to have to telegraph & postpone your visit, but there’s no help for it. For the past 3 days we have been working like beavers, & losing a lot of sleep; & so my daughter Jean & my secretary Mr. Paine are worn out & broken down & I reckon I am even a trifle worse than they are. The wedding is over, the bride & groom are gone, but the hard work promises to go straight on for a week to come—_letters, teleorams, telephone messages, etc—they keep us busy; & the house has to be restored to what it was before the wedding—& that must be put off a little, so that the servants may rest-up. We have been obliged to postpone other visits by telegraph & letter.
Thunder! we didn’t know what a wedding was like! But we know now. Dear heart, can you come seven or eight days from now? I hope so. Do try. We shall still be alive, I am sure.
Then you will take the train at Grand Central (Lexington avenue entrance) at 4.15 p.m.
Saturdays 1.15 p.m.
Tell me the train you take, so that I can send to the station for you.
With kindest regards to your mother & love to you. / ... [MTP].
May Cline wrote from San Diego, Calif. to ask for an autograph [MTP].
Richard E, Johnston wrote again to Sam asking where he could reach Clara by letter. “I must have something from her to send to the people whom I have made engagements with. They are furious with me, and it is all unfair. However, you see she should write a letter that can be published, in which she takes all the blame” [MTP].
Warren Mason, correspondent for the London Daily Express, writing from the Sun building in NYC, wrote to Sam. His newspaper “has begun strong campaign directed against continuation misrule of Congo.” He asked if Clemens might telegraph “commendary methods” and how “public opinion of civilized world can best manifest itself’ [MTP],
October 7-13 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam sent form letter announcements of Clara’s wedding to Ossip Gabrilowitsch to: Harriet W. Enders, Richard Watson Gilder and Helena Gilder (Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder), George Bernard Shaw, and William Winter [MTP]. Note: no doubt many others were sent after the ceremony. On the back of one of the announcements, this to an unidentified person, was a list from 1885 of incoming letters from Feb. to Sept. 29. See UCCL #12003 for details.