August 14 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote a delightful letter to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. Harry Rogers, Jr.) in Fairhaven, Mass. 

Ho, you miraculous combination of quicksilver, watch-springs & sunshine, how you do dance out from your pen & light up this solemn solitude & set things a-moving! No matter how long you live you’ll never get old, (thanks be!) My wife never did, neither did my mother; & my mother lived to be 88, & always she was all animations & champagne & charm, like you. I think it a most remarkable thing that I was able to draw you (as mother Eve) to the very life, & all by accident. From the first page to the last, there you are; it is your very self, exactly as you would have looked & acted if you had been Eve, with a spang-new beautiful world to flutter around in—& not a detail of you lacking, so far as I can see, but the tawny hair & the clothes.

And on pages 69 & 71 you are concentrated. I am pretty proud of that accident. No doubt, accidents that approximate it have happened in literature, but his isn’t an approximation, it is a reproduction, & stands all by itself, unfellowed.

Miss Lyon went to New York yesterday, to be gone a week & more, & meet Clara there & help her & the architect plan the new house, & see that there is a proper billiard-room in it for you to break records in; Jean has gone with 12 young people to climb Monadnock; so the place is empty & still, & that is the solemn solitude I have spoken of. Would you believe it?—I am developing into a tromper of the woods myself. The rich twilight of these lonely woodland roads is enchanting. If you would come—but I perceive that you can’t. Day before yesterday I covered a very handsome distance indeed, for a novice.

I am so glad you liked that scrap of autobiography, dear pal; & I wish I could send more, since you are willing to read it, but there’s only one “set” here, for Harvey carried away the other set to select instalments from. Some day it will come back, & then I will overwhelm you with it unless you stop trying to make out that you are a fictitious pal. There isn’t any way for you to be fictitious, you wouldn’t know how to go about it. Do you know?—I had the delightfulest letter from your Merlie, & was smart enough to read between the lines that she was really grateful to us for keeping order in that bridge party; & she as good as said she wished she could have all her bridge orgies policed & tranquillized like that. These are not her exact words, but they are very close.

As to that secret. I must manage that—& soon. But how? I have to have your criminal help. I could go to Fairhaven day after tomorrow (Thursday)—& Friday just as well—but shall you be there? And will uncle Henry come up Friday? (He mustn’t be allowed to escape to the mountains before this conspiracy is consummated—indeed that won’t do!—do you hear, Spontaneous Combustion, do you?)

Will you telegraph or telephone me?

But if you find it must be put off a week, I will arrange accordingly. Meantime keep your eye on the head senior, & see that he doesn’t flee to the mountains.

From all accounts of the cruise, you & Harry must have had a delightful time; & not such a very unsociable time, neither. If I may have the privilege, dear pal, I also am / Yours affectionately / SLC

All this time I’ve had the help of three kittens—& not dead ones, either [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: C.C., J.H. & I went out to Redding, going by error to Danbury, picking up a sandwich luncheon at the station to carry with us & finding a very good team to take us the 8 miles to Redding. It is a lovely country. It is Connecticut. The King’s stretch of land is very beautiful, with a fine site for the house to be built there & many sites beside. J.H. paced off the house foundation & we lunched on the hilltop & everything was delightful. I could only see the chimney of the old shingled farm house & the barns & I don’t know where the Paine house is, for we didn’t stop there at all [MTP TS 107].