March 14 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Charlston, S.C. about 8 a.m. / Lighted at the Ponce de Leon” [NB 45 TS 5].
Sam’s ship log: “Nighted at the Ponce de Leon” [MTP]. Note: the “Lighted” in the NB may be a typo.
Livy’s diary: “Susy Twichell & her friend Mrs lunched with us; Florence Gay dined with us & spent the night” [MTP: DV161].
The men left the Kanawha at Charleston, and took the Florida Special train, where Sam wrote to Livy,
“Below Savannah, Ga., Somewhere”:
Livy darling, it is hours & hours of flat country, with thin forests standing knee-deep & melancholy in swamps; but little cultivation; at wide intervals shackly & miserable cabins; an occasional negro—ragged, & generally idle; seldom a cow or horse visible; rivers now & then, sluggish & yellow—deep yellow; a dreary & unpeopled & poverty-stricken piece of the earth. We passed thro’ Richmond about 11 last night, & passed by Charleston about breakfast time this morning. I was in bed by 10.30 & slept well until 5—a surprise to me. Came of over-feeding, maybe; for I ate a lunch & also a vast dinner.
We have suddenly come into a fruit region, now, & the white & pink blossoms greatly improve the aspects.
We shall reach St. Augustine about 4 p.m., & change to a train to Miami; we shall be in that train 12 hours & get to Miami after 8 to-morrow morning.
Good-bye, dear sweetheart, & don’t be lonesome [MTP].
Sam’s party reached St. Augustine, Fla. and decided to spend the night there before pressing on to Miami [Mar. 14 to Livy].
James F. Mallinckrodt, “Modelmaker & Mechanician” wrote a rather strange letter from St. Louis to Sam, enclosing a flyer for a book Novissimum Organum by John Thinkingmachine.
Dear Sir: You have had your dreaded ‘falling out’ with Mrs. Astor already, and have survived….She said she was an authoress, and it was perfectly natural to her. You, on the other hand, as merely a reader, would make yourself equal with the most high, which in this case is herself. You seemed to have demolished her definition, but may lose your hope yet, if Queen [illegible word] poetry doesn’t sell.
He also announced he’d bought “the little paper biography by Will M. Clemens”…and proceeded to talk about specifics in the bio. He closed with this unrelated bit: “Dwight L. Moody is around again, holding meetings through a successor, G. Campbell Morgan. I think you and I could do some revival work” [MTP]. Note: Moody was a well known evangelist.
Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote to Sam from St. Die Vosges, France.
Indeed the pride of being appointed Member of your [Juggernaut] club gave me the strongest desire of writing immediately to thank you for the unexpected honour. I was delayed by a silly idea that, the capital I live in being so close to Douremy, I had a chance of finding here the photos I wanted to send you. I was mistaken…they must be ordered in Paris.
[Note: Picard was “dying to receive the rules” for the club “if your daughter will be so kind as to write them for me.” She wrote a “formal” introduction of herself as if she “were an English girl….of a French Alsatian family—aged 29—born in Le Havre—tall, fair and plain looking…living alone with her mother…in a very small town in the Vosges Mountains…So very fond of books, delights in yours” MTP].