November 1 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:
Tonight D. & Francesca Gilder, C.C. & I went up to see Forbes Robinson and Gertrude Elliot in Bernard Shaw’s “Cleopatra and Caesar.” Beautifully, quite perfectly staged it is, but there are no climaxes, & it ends only because the actors & everyone else is (are) tired, & it’s time to go home, so unconvincing it is.
The King is still in bed but longing to get up at the billiard table.
We have had to telegraph to Hartford that the King isn’t well enough to go up tomorrow to be present at the Saturday Morning club. It’s too sad, for I was going too, to see Hattie Enders & others [MTP TS 142-143]. Note: Misses Dorothea and Francesca Gilder, daughters of Richard Watson Gilder.
W.H. Fletcher for the Fulton Monument Assoc. wrote to Sam that Cornelius Vanderbilt, President of the Association called a meeting on Nov. 14 at 4 p.m. in the State Room of the Waldorf Astoria. Sam was urged to attend [MTP].
William S. Hinckley wrote from Kansas City, Mo. Hinckley’s ambition was to become an author and enclosed “ a few items concerning my old Colonel ‘Kit Carson’ and” himself. “My object in writing you is for advice, because I know you are capable of giving it,” and it would be appreciated. He enclosed a photo of himself, appearing to be distinguished older gentleman about 60 or more, a small drawing of “Our cabin” some eleven feet square, and newspaper clippings about Hinckley’s association with Carson [MTP].
William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
I am dispatching Miss Lyon’s note to John, so that he shall not engage Valet of the Shadow for your Egyptian sojourn. I am sorry you are not able to go, but glad you are able to stay, for I want to see you, and will come as soon as we can get out of this hell of noises which we madly dropt ourselves into last night. Did you ever have your head pounded with a cobblestone? That is what it is like. If possible we shall move today. Yours ever…[MTHL 2: 821]. Note: on Oct. 30 Sam canceled arrangements to spend the winter in Egypt upon getting bronchitis. It’s not clear just when the Egypt trip was first planned. Evidently Valet of the Shadow was a suggested porter for the trip. Howells had just returned from Kittery Point and the “hell of noises” was the Hotel Oxford, Park Ave. and 58 St.