September 30 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Louise Paine in Locust Valley, N.Y,
Dear Louise, I was very glad to hear from you. Your father brought back the plated ware to-day, & I have forgiven him, for he did not know it was plated or he would not have taken it. He thought it was silver; that was the only reason he took it, he said to himself. One is not blameable for mistakes, we all make them. A mistake is not a crime, it is only a miscarriage of judgement.
Your father & mother & Mr. & Mrs. Verbach have just gone. We had a very pleasant hour or two together.
We had two fishes & some other nice guests up to yesterday, when they all went away, & Miss Lyon & my daughter with them. And so I am to be all alone now several days, then on Friday we shall have another angel-fish & her mother, & Mr. Ashcroft.
My daughter Jean sailed for Germany Saturday & is now in mid-ocean. I had a wireless message from her a few minutes ago saying she is well & is having a comfortable voyage.
Your father is coming to play billiards with me to-morrow—then I shan’t be lonesome. With love & all good wishes— / … [MTP; MTAq 210].
Sam also wrote to Dorothy Sturgis.
You dear delightful Annieanlouise! You cannot realize how much we all miss you, nor what a continuity charm your presence was, nor how it pervaded this house like a fragrance & refreshed its mouldy & antique atmosphere with “the unbought grace of youth.” I wish you were back again. However, if wishing could do any good, you would be already back. It was lovely of your mother to let us have you, & I hope & trust she will let us have you again soon. Will she? Pray say she will.
Yes, we played billiards that night & Benares beat me by one point, (that is, by two of his points, which is one of mine.) Yesterday Miss Lyon failed to find a comrade for me, so Benares came up in the 4.15; & after dinner he played the Erlkönig twice for me, then we played billiards until 10.30. He made a 150 points while I made 280: so he beat me again, & worse than before. He was to have stayed here with me until tomorrow, but he is gone; Miss Lyon telephoned him while we were at breakfast, & he left by the 10.31, half an hour before your letter came. And so all day today, & all day tomorrow & all day next day there isn’t going to be anybody here but me, & I don’t count, as personal society. These aren’t the “bes’ g.d. days” for me, for sure.
Mr. Lounsbury has just this minute been in, with a “find.” It is the stolen plated ware. The burglars hid it behind a rock almost in front of that farm house which he says you called beautiful. I do not remember which one that was. The finding was an accident, & happened early this morning.
Yesterday morning, after the rainstorm I went down to the gorge to see the results. You can’t think what a cataract was raging past the Brushwood Bay’s seat! But it was a double stream, & needed some practised experts to dam one of them & concentrate the waters in a single volume.
“And say we shall always be thus.”
That was lovely, & just perfect, until you took it back in the postscript. Why did you do it, unless the sentiment was a jest? I don’t want it to be a jest. Come Annieanlouise dear, you mustn’t say it was a sarcasm: I wouldn’t have you say that for anything. In my belief it wasn’t a jest when you wrote it, because I think it goes without saying that if it had been, it would have stopped in your thoughts & you wouldn’t have written it. I am going to believe that the postscript was a momentary afterthought, & you underestimated the force of it. Isn’t this solution correct? [MTP; MTAq 211-12]. Note: Der Erlkönig, was a poem by Goethe used in art songs by several composers, the most famous being by Franz Schubert, his Opus.1.
Jean Clemens cabled her father. The cable is not extant but referred to in Sam’s to Louise Paine, Sept. 30
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “This morning I was exhausted and sent out to Redding for Benares to come in and take me home” [MTP: IVL TS 67].