September 15 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.
My wife being ill, I have been—in literary matters—helpless all these weeks. I have no editor—no censor. I tried that Hell or Heaven on Howells, & he left me with the impression that it was all right—whereas, it wasn’t.
I was full of doubts, but when your telegram came to-day I started the story along. Half an hour later my eldest daughter remarked that she had carried the thing to her room & examined it, & it had a couple of large merits, but that they belonged apart, to be merits: joined together, they destroyed each other. She was right—I saw it in a moment. Too much sermon: it is a millstone round the story’s neck.
Return it to me, & if I can’t weed enough of the sermon out at one quick sitting to properly & artistically subordinate it, I will at once mail you a brisk yarn to take its place: “The Belated Russian Passport.” It is short—about 7 pages of the Monthly I think. I wrote it yesterday & day before, because I couldn’t get rid of my doubts about that Hell or Heaven.
I am handicapped in another way: my youngest daughter is my type-writer, & she isn’t strong & sometimes can’t stay at the machine more than an hour a day, & some days we don’t allow her to work at all. I would send the “Passport” if it were ready, & you could take your choice; but she has only just begun on it. She thinks she can finish it to-morrow. If she does, I will mail it to-morrow night. There’s nothing the matter with it, by God [MTP]. Note: “The Belated Russian Passport” ran in Harper’s Weekly Dec. 6, 1902.
Sam’s notebook “In response to urgent telegram from Duneka [not extant], sent him Heaven or Hell & telegraphed him so [not extant]. Said I would send ‘Russian Passport’ tomorrow / [Line separator] / Dinner, 7.30 at Nelson Page’s, to meet Charles Scribner [NB 45 TS 27]. Note: Thomas Nelson Page (1853-1922), lawyer, writer, and later ambassador to Italy under President Wilson. Page’s writings were idealized versions of plantation life before the Civil War. His 1903 Pastime Stories would be published by the other gentleman Sam was to meet at this dinner, Scribner. In 1905 Sam would nominate Page for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.