January 12 Friday – In New York on Dr. Rice’s letterhead, Sam wrote to Livy of the trip down from Hartford the previous day, lingering negotiations in the typesetter affair, and Mrs. Cabell’s confidence. Kipling would be in New York for a week and Sam wanted to invite him to dinner, but was afraid there would be business interruptions.
The construction of a contract that will suit Paige’s lawyer (not Paige) turns out to be very difficult. He is embarrassed by earlier advice to Paige, & hates to retire from it & stultify himself. The negociations are being conducted by means of tedious long telegrams & by long talks over the long-distance telephone. We keep the wires loaded.
Mrs. Cabell told me last night that the relations between herself & Annie Trumbull are of the most devoted & tender nature.
Dear me, dinner is ready. So Mrs. Rice says [MTP].
Sam wrote a second, longer letter to Livy, having just received three from her. He assured her that their long separation was “pure necessity,” and the Paige’s signature on the new contract by H.H. Rogers (not yet finalized) meant “our very bread & meat.” There had been a conference with Rogers and others in the morning, and everyone noticed Rogers’ “stock of patience” was “running low.” Sam told of a telegram Rogers sent early in the day, which implied a threat of his withdrawal from the agreement.
He made no threat, but the inference was clear. The others wanted the apparent positiveness of it softened, but I insisted on having it go unmodified, & it did. There is only one way to deal with Paige, & that is to take a stand & keep it. I do hope I can cable you, the 15th, that the contract is signed.
Sam was sorry to hear that Livy and Susy were ill; the Twichells wanted Susy to come and live with them for several months, though “privately,” Sam felt their “table would not nourish Susy.” Frederick Hall had gone to a lecture the previous night by Prof. Powell of the University of Pennsylvania, who said PW “was clearly & powerfully drawn & would live & take his place as one of the great creations of American fiction.”
Isn’t that pleasant — & unexpected! For I have never thought of Puddn’head as a character, but only as a piece of machinery — a button or a crank or a lever, with a useful function to perform in a machine, but with no dignity above that. I think we all so regarded him at home. Well, oddly enough, other people have spoken of him to me much as Prof. Powell has spoken.
Sam enclosed the program from the “Masque” play put on by the Saturday Morning Club on Jan. 10.
I was proud to be the father & sole male member of a Club that could write & play plays like that. The more I think of that evening the more I want to see the play again.
Sam wrote of the rain of invitations that he didn’t accept, and of attending “strictly to business, & to private dinners where there were no speeches.
Tonight, dinner at R.U. Johnson’s [Robert Underwood Johnson] — don’t want to go, but can’t properly decline; Tuesday, 1 p.m., at Mrs. Carroll Beckwith’s — luncheon — she’s playing me as a card, & will have a large company — but she has been treating me very handsomely, & so I’m perfectly willing to spin yarns if her guests want them; Monday 7:30 pm, dinner with Stanford White the architect, up in his quarters in the Tower of Madison Square Garden — Abbey the artist & other artists are to be there. I shall enjoy it. [Note: Fatout lists this reading, MT Speaking 661]. Note: Henry C. Abbey (see Jan. 15, 1894).
Sam’s great success at the Brander Matthews banquet led him to decline all others, keeping what he’d gained. He ended by saying no telegrams yet from Chicago, and he “must start right out to Dana’s,” (Charles A. Dana, ed. NY Sun) to whom he’d declined a dinner invitation for Jan. 10 [LLMT 289-92].
At Robert Underwood Johnson’s Sam had “a good time.”
Although my new high-quarter shoes were mighty uncomfortable. Dr. Rice was at his funniest & best. Mrs. Rice drove home in the brougham, & Rice & I walked the two miles in the crisp & splendid midnight air. I wonder how long Mrs. Rice had to stand at her door in that crisp & splendid air, & how much she enjoyed it, & what sort of language she used to herself — for the doctor forgot to give her the key [Jan.13 to Livy: MTP].
January 12 Friday, after – In New York Sam wrote to daughter Jean.
Oh, great Scott, dear Jean! I believe I never told you about that seed which Mrs. Dodge sent you in a little box. It must be warmed in your hand or under the rays of a lamp — then, if it is still in good condition it will walk quite rapidly across a smooth surface like a sheet of paper. It comes from Mexico & is called the Walking Seed.
Father Sam also wrote about a construction girder falling to Broadway, cutting a wagon in half but not touching the horses. He PS’d that he’d been to Hartford and “seen the good people & the dear home” and assured her that she would “do likewise one of these days” [MTP].