October 7 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

It’s night now & I’ve just come to my room. The King called a minute ago & when I went to my door to see what he wanted, he stood in his own doorway & with gritting teeth said, “I wish you’d gather together my bobtailed flannel night shirts & burn them! I wish they were all in hell! I hate them so!”

He has been giving us a lovely evening, for he has been reading poetry for more than an hour— the old English ballads, & war poems

Gerome & Anna Cabot were here for luncheon, & the King didn’t stay with us very long. He went up to bed to read “Henry Esmond” & finds that it drags—& to smoke & loaf to his heart’s content. He was a little spiritless & so stayed with himself until dinner time. At luncheon we were talking of the idioms & usages of the West—the Klondike—& the King spoke of Rex Beach’s telling at the 70th birthday dinner how away out there “you pay a dollar for a drink & they lend you a blanket to throw a fit on.” “How id describes that liquor without saying a word about it,” he said.

Gerome & Anna Cabot were here for luncheon & after the meal when Jean suggested a walk, Gerome said that 3 was a hopeless number & that he’d stay & make me a call if he might. I quoted Nietzsche where he says that there is no comradeship in 3, that one of the number is like a cork bobbing on the surface & never letting the talk drop to any depths, so the split up was accomplished. Gerome & I sat by the open fire, & the talk dropped into the depths & showed me unsuspected beauties in him…[MTP TS 128-129]. Note: William Makepeace Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond, a novel (1852). See Gribben p. 696.