January 13 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam replied to the Jan. 12 of Dorothy Quick:
You are just a dear little Dorothy, & I am ever so glad you are coming Saturday morning. We’ll have a fine holiday together. I wish a person could rent you or buy you, just as he would other choice real estate, then I wouldn’t let you go back any more.
Love & good-night, dear [MTP; MTAq 96].
In his A.D. of this date, Sam wrote about a follow up meeting with Elinor Glyn, whom he had met at a December private dinner at Delmonico’s given by Daniel Frohman. In part:
Two or three weeks ago Elinor Glyn called on me one afternoon and we had a long talk, of a distinctly unusual character, in the library. It may be that by the time this chapter reaches print she may be less well known to the world than she is now, therefore I will insert here a word or two of information about her. She is English. She is an author. The newspapers say she is visiting America with the idea of finding just the right kind of a hero for the principal character in a romance which she is purporting to write. She has come to us upon the stormwind of a vast and sudden notoriety.
The source of this notoriety is a novel of hers called Three Weeks. …
[Sam then summarized, in several paragraphs, the plot line and characters]
Mme. Glyn called…and she was a picture! Slender, young, faultlessly formed and incontestably beautiful—a blonde with blue eyes, the incomparable English complexion and crowned with a glory of red hair of a very peculiar, most rare and quite ravishing tint. She was clad in the choicest stuffs and in the most perfect taste. There she is, just a beautiful girl; yet she has a daughter fourteen years old. She isn’t winning; she has no charm but the charm of beauty and youth and grace and intelligence and vivacity; she acts charm and does it well, exceedingly well in fact, but it does not convince, it doesn’t stir the pulse, it doesn’t go to the heart, it leaves the heart serene and unemotional. …
I talked with her with daring frankness, frequently calling a spade a spade instead of coldly symbolizing it as a snow shovel; and on her side she was equally frank. It was one of the damndest conversations I have ever had with a beautiful stranger of her sex, if I do say it myself that shouldn’t. She wanted my opinion of her book and I furnished it. I said its literary workmanship was excellent and that I quite agreed with her view that in the manner of the sexual relation man’s statutory regulations of it were a distinct interference with a higher law, the law of Nature. . ..
Of course what she wanted of me was support and defense—I knew that but I said I couldn’t furnish it. I said we were the servants of convention; that we could not subsist, either in a savage or a civilized state, without conventions; that we must accept them and stand by them, even when we disapproved of them; that while the laws of Nature, that is to say the laws of God, plainly made every human being a law unto himself, we must steadfastly refuse to obey those laws, and we must as steadfastly stand by the conventions which ignore them, since the statutes furnish us peace, fairly good government and stability, and therefore are better for us than the laws of God, which would soon plunge us into confusion and disorder and anarchy if we should adopt them. I said her book was an assault upon certain old and well-established and wise conventions and that it would not find many friends, and indeed would not deserve many.
She said I was very brave, the bravest person she had ever met (gross flattery which could have beguiled me when I was very very young), and she implored me to publish these views of mine, but I said, “No, such a thing is unthinkable.” …
Some days afterward I met her again for a moment and she gave me the startling information that she had written down every word I had said, just as I had said it, without any softening and purifying modifications, and that it was “just splendid, just wonderful.” She said she had sent it to her husband in England. Privately I didn’t think that was a very good idea, and yet I believed it would interest him. She begged me to let her publish it and said it would do infinite good in the world, but I said it would damn me before my time and I didn’t wish to be useful to the world on such expensive conditions [Neider 353-7]. ….
Elinor Glyn’s account of this 90-minute meeting:
He is a dear old man with a halo of white silky hair and a fresh face, and the eyes of a child which look out on life with that infinite air of wisdom one sees peeping sometimes from a young pure soul. To find such eyes in an aged face proves many things as to the hidden beauties in the character. Mark Twain was dressed in putty-coloured—almost white—broad- cloth, very soigné and attractive looking. We sat on a large divan, and he gave orders that we were not to be disturbed [Glyn 143].
Note: unless further evidence is found, the afternoon call by Elinor Glyn is placed in the last week of Dec. 1907. The private dinner by Frohman is estimated at mid-Dec. 1907. Thus, Sam’s above A.D. of Jan. 13, 1908 thus allows time for both events.
Notes of Glyn’s travels, appearances: Elinor Glyn came to the U.S. on Oct. 4, 1907, staying at the Wolcott Hotel. The New York Times, p. BR604 under “What Authors Are Doing” ran a squib announcing her arrival on the Cedric. The paper ran a feature article on her arrival on Oct. 6, p.X12 “Elinor Glyn Talks About Her American Critics.” On Oct. 13, p. SM1, an article appeared under Glyn’s byline, “How New York City Appears to Elinor Glyn.” On Nov. 16, page 1 of the Times reported her in Philadelphia, commenting on the critics as idiots; her book reportedly had sold 50,000 copies during October. On Dec. 3, p.9, the Times headlined Glyn as a guest at the Bagby Musicale, guest of Mrs. Francis R. Leggett, at the Waldorf; and on Dec. 8 a feature article on fashion detailed her outfit at the Bagby Musicale. The Times further reported her appearance on Dec. 9 for the prior night’s gathering of Bohemian Clubs at the Hotel Astor (p. 2; “Bohemian Clubs Hit By Blue Law”); she was quoted in the article as having written Three Weeks “in precisely six days.” She was the subject of a tiff with the actress Mme. Alla Nazimova over her promise and reneging to play in a stage version of Three Weeks [NY Times, Dec. 15, p. 1, “Mrs. Glyn Serves an Ultimatum”]. Her talk to members of the Pen and Brush Club on the afternoon of Dec. 17 was covered by the Times in a Dec. 18, p. 2 article, “Mrs. Glyn On Her Own Books.” The Dec. 20 arrival in New York of Elinor Glyn’s sister, Lady Duff Gordon, was mentioned in a page 1 squib, “Consult Burke’s Peerage.” Elinor Glyn was quoted at the Hotel Plaza. The Dec. 21 luncheon attendance and subsequent snub of Glyn by the Pilgrim Mothers was duly reported in more than one article, the first being “Pilgrim Mothers Cold to Mrs. Glyn” on p. 3, Dec. 22. A Dec. 21 tour of Chinatown by Glyn, her sister and eight others was also reported by the Times on Dec. 23, p. 9, “Lady Duff Gordon Sees Chinatown.” See also the Sept. 27, 1908 interview of MT by Charles Henry Meltzer of the New York American. Elinor Glyn returned to England the last week of June, 1908, arriving in early July [Glyn 159, 163].
George M. Case, James R. Case, Earl B. Holmes, Frank Sicor, Dwight H. Wickwill, and James E. Standish wrote from Colchester, Conn. to Sam: “Dan Beard, the founder of S.D.B. wished us to write to you & tell you that we have elected you an Honorary Member of Fort Roosevelt No. 1. Will you kindly send us your signature so that we can paste it in our Constitution?” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Jan. 20, ‘08”
Alice H. Westovelt wrote from NYC to Sam. “Pardon a hasty line. You never came to my party & disappointed to[o] many.” Could he come Sat. next, the 18th? [MTP].
Irene Fredericka Rau wrote from Boston to thank Sam for his signed photo. His Autobiography had been a “constant source of pleasure” [MTP].
January 13, after – A short time after Elinor Glyn’s visit and Sam’s A.D. of Jan. 13, he had another visitor, and added this A.D.:
Sure enough, her report came! It came several days ago, not by her hand but by the hand of another—by the hand of an American lady who is Mrs. Glyn’s closest friend and most ardent admirer, a lady whom I know and like. She is young; she is beautiful; she has faultless taste in dress, and, I know she would be charming if she hadn’t a hobby; but often a hobby so possesses its rider that it sucks all the juices out of the rider’s personality and leaves it dry and feverish and hot-eyed and unwholesome, unspiritual, unwinning, unpersuasive, and I may even say repellent. As a rule, a person under the dominion of a hobby cannot be satisfactorily dealt with. It is the hobby-rider’s conviction that his own reasonings upon his subject are the only sane ones; it is his conviction that your counter-reasonings are either insane or insincere; they make not the least impression upon him, if he even hears them, which he generally doesn’t for while you are talking his mind is commonly busy with what it is going to say in reply to these reasonings which it has not been listening to—busy with what it is going to say when you make a temporary halt for breath and give it a chance to break in.
The lady had not been sent by Mrs. Glyn; she had come of her own accord, and without Mrs. Glyn’s knowledge. She had studied Mrs. Glyn’s report of our conversation, with Mrs. Glyn’s permission, with the result that she felt it to be her duty to come and urge me to let it be published. The sense that it was her duty to do this was so commanding, so overpowering, that she was notable to resist it, but was obliged to surrender to its mastery and obey. She added that she was thoroughly convinced that it was my duty—a duty which I could not honorably avoid —to allow this conversation to be published, because of the influence it—would have upon the public for good.
I said I was sorry to be obliged to take a different view of my duty, but that such was the case. I said I was so habituated to shirking my duty that I was able now to shirk it fifty times a day without a pang; that is, that I could shirk fifty duties a day without a pang if the opportunity to do it were furnished me; that I did not get fifty opportunities a day, but that I got an average of about that many a week, and that I had noticed a peculiarity, a quite interesting peculiarity, of these opportunities—to grit, that the opportunity to do a duty was always furnished me by an outsider, it seldom originated with me; it was always furnished by some person who knew more about my duties toward the public than I did. I said I believed that if I should become the champion of every cause that was brought to my attention and shown by argument that it was my duty to take hold of it and champion it, I shouldn’t ever have any time left to punch up the China missionaries or revel in any of the other duties that were of my own invention and that were occupying all the spare room in my heart. “And yet, “I said,” if you leave out the China missionaries, and King Leopold of Belgium, and the Children’s Theater I am not working many duties of my own invention, but am mainly laboring at duties put upon me by other people.” I said, “I am really quite active in fussing at other people’s good causes—by request. Let me show you—let me give you a list. At present my duty-mill is pretty persistently grinding in the interest of these several matters—to wit:
The Fulton Memorial Fund, which has imposed upon me two voyages to Jamestown, several appeal-letters for publication, half-a-dozen speeches and one lecture;
The movement propagated by Miss Holt for raising a large fund to be devoted to the amelioration of the condition of this State’s helpless and unsupported adult blind persons;
The American movement in the interest of those Russian revolutionists whose hope is to modify tie Czar and his blood-kin menagerie, and rake life in Russia endurable for the common people.
However, the full list would take up too much room. Let the rest go. It is only noon now, yet between yesterday noon And the present noon I have had more opportunities of offered me in the way of assisting good causes than I could utilize, even if I should do my very best. For instance: Speech at the impending banquet in the interest of that great society which is endeavoring to promote more intimate relations between America and France than now exist. I had to decline it; Invitation to take a prominent part in another impending function in that same interest. I had to decline it; Invitation to take a prominent part in still another impending function in that same interest. I had to decline it; Invitation to attend a public meeting whose object is to obstruct the progress of Christian Science in the land. I had to decline it; Invitation to make a speech at a public meeting whose object is to raise funds in aid of another polar expedition. I had to decline it;
That isn’t the whole list—but never mind the rest. It is a sufficient indication that you have arrived late with your opportunity for me to do my duty toward the public in this matter of yours, and it will suggest to you that when a person gets so many chances, every twenty-four hours, to do good, he is bound to become callous eventually, and feel not a single responsive throb in his heart when a new chance, or a hundred of them, are offered him. You are very strongly interested in the matter which has brought you to me aren’t you?”
“Yes, my heart is in it.”
“Your whole heart?”
“Yes, my whole heart:”
“It is the same with Mrs. Glyn, isn’t it?”
“Yes, just the same.”
“Both of you have been approached by people whose whole hearts were in other large causes and who wished to secure your sympathy and help in those causes—isn’t it so?”
“Yes, that is true—there have been many instances.”
“I don’t need to ask you if you declined. I always know you did. It isn’t human nature to feel a working sympathy in every good cause that is brought to one’s attention, and without that warm sympathy in a person’s heart he is not going to take hold of such things merely because somebody whose whole heart is in them wants him to do it. Now no part of my heart is in this matter of yours and Mrs. Glyn’s, and I long ago stopped engaging my mouth in either good or bad causes where my heart was indifferent. You and Mrs. Glyn think it strange that since I have an opinion about this matter of yours I yet refuse to make that opinion public; you do think it strange, don’t you?”
“Yes, we do.”
“You think that if you were in my place you would consider a private opinion a public one as well, and that. it was your duty to publish it, and that you could not refuse to publish it without being guilty of moral cowardice—isn’t it so?”
“You have stated it in perhaps harsher terms than necessary, but substantially it is what we think.”
“Don’t you believe that there are often cases where you would do things in private which were without offense and yet which you would not be quite willing to do in public? For instance: you are the mother of three children.”
“Yes” [MTP]. Note: the identity of the lady referred to is unknown.