March 18 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “All morning at Miami. Visited Mrs. Whitehead (Lucy Page) / Anchored outside about 4” [NB 45 TS 6]. Sam’s ship log: “All the morning at Miami. Anchored outside about 4” [MTP].
On board the Kanawha in Miami, Fla., Sam wrote to Beatrice M. Benjamin, H.H. Rogers’ granddaughter.
It was lovely of you to make that beautiful tag me & furnish me that sure protection against dishonest people who covet every umbrella they see. I find it very useful. I was afraid to bring an umbrella this time, not foreseeing that I was to have this protection; but I am all the better off, because I am now able to put the tag on any umbrella I prefer, & pull it in. I am the only person in this ship, now, who has an umbrella, & they all have to come to me to borrow. They have all heard of Fortunatus’s Purse before, but the Magic Tag is new to them & confuses their intellects.
We are about to sail, now, & it is a beautiful summer day [MTP]. Note: in the 15th C. German story, Fortunatus received a purse that was continually replenished as often as he drew from it.
Sam also wrote to daughter Clara.
Clara dear, I desire that you will go to Marcus’s & replace the ring your mother lost, with one as nearly like it as you can get. It will cost several hundred dollars, & will come out of the article which I sent to the North American Review a day or two ago—the rest of the which money your mother will spend in her own way, together with such sums as shall result from an article on Washington, Funston & Co which I mean to finish presently & send home for supervision & acceptance or damnation by the head of the house. There is no secrecy in this matter, & no surprise—so your mother can see the ring, & if it is not satisfactory, Marcus must try again. Do not lose it on your way home—let the conductor carry it for you. The check for the N. A. article can all go to the ring, if necessary; it has probably reached Riverdale by this time.
We go to sea very soon now, & it is a beautiful summer day. We walked up to the hotel a while ago, & Mrs. [Lucy Page] Whitehead sent me the enclosed note. I went up stairs & saw her. In a wrapper. It is her bridal trip. She has not had her clothes off for two weeks. She was her same old charming self, & greatly touched me by her loving words about your mother. Her husband is still abed, but is getting well. I saw him a moment. He is very grey, & about 70.
They say Venice is a delightful summer residence. Lucy has relatives who spend all their summers in Venice; so does Hopkinson Smith.
Goodbye, dear, goodbye all—& love to all of you [MTP]. Note: Sam’s essay, “A Defence of General Funston” would run in the May issue of North American Review.
Sam also wrote a note to H.H. Rogers. “Nassau: That’s the trip to take—all sunshine & summer seas below Hatteras. Look it up in that Cyclopedia; & I will go & interview somebody acquainted with the trip, tomorrow morning” [MTHHR 483]. Note: n2 of this source gives the following itinerary, evidently now set:
The itinerary finally decided upon took the company from Palm Beach to Miami by rail where they joined the yacht; then to Nassau, back to Key West, and westward to Havana on 23 March. Turning the western end of Cuba on 25 March, the yacht headed for Kingston, Jamaica, arriving on 27 March. They touched at Santiago, Cuba, and then headed northward by way of Rum Cay; Nassau; Jacksonville, Florida; and finally Charleston, Norfolk, and New York City. Rogers, Clemens, Rice, Colonel Paine, Laurence Hutton, and W.T. Foote made up the party, which undertook numerous expeditions inland at these ports.