June 10 Sunday – In the evening in Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson.

Let me congratulate, let me shout! I wrote you a good deal of a letter to-day, & took a world of pains with it, in the pretty doubtful hope of persuading you to put the work aside a while & not destroy yourself with it, but I have burnt it without a regret for the labor wasted. Charlotte dear, you have come through handsomely, you remarkable creature! Take a good satisfying rest— you deserve it.

Indeed yes, I wish I could be at that dinner; & it might have happened, too, but for the accident that whereas I made ready yesterday to leave for New York to-day to begin a lawsuit, news came last night that I needn’t go for six weeks yet. I felt disappointed. And quite naturally, too, for I did want to escape from this place for a week or two. Most privately & most confidentially I wish to whisper to you that this beautiful, this enchantingly beautiful homestead, is a perfectly heartbreaking solitude. It would be that, even if the summerers were already here—which they are not; for they all live two or three miles away—too far for me. I’ve stopped dictating—tired of it. I’ve stopped reading autobiography & admiring it—tired to death of it! We are tired of each other’s faces. ‘The others find  ways—such as they are—to kill the time, but I can’t find any way. Jean takes long drives every day—I never do, I detest it. Miss Lyon takes long walks every afternoon over the hills & through the woods—I have not stepped a foot off the piazza in all these weeks—or is it years? I was never so dismally situated in my life before. It is so different from last year! We couldn’t get that house this year, but we have spoken for it for next year. Oh, Solitude—thinkof it! two days ago I was standing on the piazza at 6 p.m. when two beautiful deer came sauntering across the grounds & stopped & looked me over as impudently as if they thought of buying me. Then they seemed to conclude that they could do better for less money, & sauntered indolently away.

…. [cut here is a description of pages he decided not to send, including an “incomprehensible” PS to Dr. Northrup that was “merely a surreptitious letter” to Teller] I’ll study the play several days, when it comes, but I shall be afraid to criticise, because I am not competent.

You wrote a real letter at last, Charlotte, & a most cheerful & inspiring & satisfactory one. / SLC [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

The morning business hour is all the day now. This morning it was quite a wonder—but I felt pretty ill when Mr. Clemens was reading aloud to me “The Brotherhood of Man”—a bit of a ms. he wrote 1½ years ago. I’d been so ill in the night & I couldn’t sleep. Jean’s insolences— poor child—& the great lonely hours have given the place a new name. The King calls it “The House of Mirth” [MTP TS 80-81]. Note: This entry and part of June 11 are crossed out with a diagonal X from margin to margin.

Sumner Bass Pearmain wrote to Sam. “Delighted to have this done for you—This is a copy from the Boston Transcript. I trust you are all well” [MTP]. Note: No enclosure is in the file.

June 10 ca. – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote a reply on the June 8 letter from Samuel S. McClure.

It may be that I can accept your offer, but I can’t tell about that yet. As to the kind of stuff to be taken from the auto[biography] that is not a thing for me but is for some one to do who is representing you—Any time that Bynner can come.

First be necessary for Mr B to find out if the stuff here is the kind that he wants [MTP]. Note: Witter Bynner, at this time editor for McClure’s.