November 26 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Andrew Carnegie at 2 E. 91 St., N.Y.C..
Dear St. Andrew:— / I should be delighted to be able to attend that dinner of yours, and would endeavor to come in a proper frame of mind, if the people who are trying to doctor me would let me come at all; but I have had many warnings from them, and from other sources, which convince me that I must stay in the house, hereafter, at night. If I were allowed to go any place after dark, it would be to your dinner [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.)..
Dear pal, you have a very accurate instinct: I had been in mischief—which isn’t unusual, even with me—& I was a little afraid to tell you the details. I still think that the crimes I had been committing in your absence will fare better unconfessed, though really I can give you my word they were no worse than usual.
I am not sorry you have read that dreadful book, but my main idea was to have Harry read it; because it is history & in the line of his literary likes & interests. But my! its horrors are the merest trifles compared with King Leopold’s bloody doing in the Congo State to-day. I have been arranging for Leopold with St. Peter. Also I got a contract out of him for weather for you, & for the babies. If the weather furnished is not satisfactory, let me know. Peter has promised to advance you a story higher. I asked him to give Harry & me a lift, too, but he murmured as if to himself, “in my father’s house are many flats, but we don’t need any more just now.” Do you think he meant Harry? He wouldn’t mean both of us would he, do you think? Would it be courteous—with me right there? He was a little reserved with me, because he had heard about the Charlton library banishing Eve’s Diary on account of the pictures, & hadn’t yet made up his mind what stand he would take in the matter. He was very much interested in the pictures, & was taking as suspiciously long a time examining them as had that clothed but unclean-minded librarianess. Seven interviewer have been here, but I have not seen them & have been careful to send them word that I could not talk upon the matter because I felt no interest in it—which is true; but in one case I forgot myself & said a bright thing. But no harm has come of it. The newspaper doubted the commercial wisdom of printing it, I judge.
Clara’s just gone! ordered to the country for 2 weeks by the doctor. She wouldn’t consent to go until I made a lot of promises. I mean to keep some of them. But I was to begin last night & I didn’t. I caught a fresh cold in the billiard room & had a horrible night. I was outside the house 20 minutes, yesterday, for the first time in several weeks. I was to repeat, to-day—by command —but
This is the House of Gayety! Miss Lyon left for Hartford day before yesterday—ordered by the doctor to remain away & rest 2 weeks. Jean’s gone, Clara’s gone—there’ll be nobody on the premises but the servants & me for a fortnight. And it is a week of anniversaries—this one— and there is nothing else that is so hard to get through with. They are the birth-anniversaries of two of my dead, & of my own birth—and—worst of all—Thanksgiving Day. Not the dinners— they are pleasant—but the rest of the day, with its cloud of reminiscences & its dim procession of passing spectres.
3 p.m. Last year I was loaded to the eyebrows with public engagements, from October 23 till mid-April. This year I have declined every public invitation, except one. I accepted that one day before yesterday, & have canceled it to-day. Mary, there are few people who are wiser than I—indeed I don’t suppose there are any. I wish I could have been born the same day with Solomon; just to see if he would still be remembered now.
“Du bist wie eine Blume”—& the rest of it. It all applies to you, dear niece. / Affectionately your uncle [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal (in Hartford): “Today I went to see Mrs. Ingalls.” And for Nov. 27: “And spent today quietly with her.”
Andrew Carnegie wrote to Sam. “Good morning your majesty / It has occurred to us that you stay over night with us upon the dinner night so you shall escape going home in the night air” [MTP].
John G. Carlisle wrote on Manhattan Club note paper to announce the annual dinner of the Kentuckians would this year honor Henry Watterson. Since Watterson was leaving for Europe, the dinner would be on Dec. 11 at 7 pm at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel [MTP].
Ezekiel Leavitt wrote to Sam; not mailed, delivered with his letter of introduction from William O. McDowell. He was anxious to make Sam’s acquaintance. “I am going to write a characteristic of your remarkable literary spirit for a Russian journal, and before sending it to Russia I would like to see you….Under a separate cover I am sending you my latest production “Russian Tales and Poems” [MTP]. Note: see Nov. 23 from McDowell.
Joe Twichell wrote that he was to be in NY Monday evening Dec. 3 for a dinner to Mr. Robert Ogden at the Waldorf-Astoria, and requested he might lodge at Sam’s house. “I am sure you love me well enough, if anything is in the way of it to tell me so without discomfort. We are grieved to hear that Jean has had to leave home for her health’s sake. May it not be for long.”
After his signature, Joe wrote, “PS I also am a man of international reputation. A sermon of mine has been printed in England!” [MTP].
Owen Wister wrote from Phila. to Sam. “The other day in New York I was coming to see you, when I learned you were ill in bed. This is only to say how sorry I was to hear that; & I hope it’s best untrue ever since, & will continue so” [MTP].