July 4 Wednesday – At the Grand Hotel in La Bourboule, France Sam wrote one of his famous aphorisms to Miss Bronson (not identified):
Endeavor to so live that when you come to die even the undertaker will be sorry [MTP].
Sam also wrote a note of thanks to Chatto & Windus, after receiving their telegram. He announced he was sailing from Southampton in the Paris on July 7 by way of Havre. He also asked if they might retrieve a letter he’d left at Brown’s Hotel on Dover Street for Cara Rogers Duff and send it to him at The Players Club in New York [MTP].
Sam also wrote to daughter Clara, who had gone to live in Canton of Uri, Switzerland, in what the family thought was a private house but was actually a hotel. The plan had been for her to spend time with a French family to improve her language skills. From context, Clara left the family prior to the assassination and subsequent rioting in LaBourboule. Sam and Livy still exercised parental control over even their older daughters, who understandably felt liberated when they lived apart from them.
Clara dear, yours was a fluent & delightful letter, & we are all glad you are so happy. Continue to be happy, but beware! for we are a little troubled about your isolated situation. We had not contemplated that shape of the matter, & naturally are disturbed at it. We had thought only of a peasant’s home for you — a private house, not a public hotel. Why, even in America a public hotel would be rather objectionable. Mamma prefers that if you are not perfectly private on that balcony & not under fire of curious eyes, you had better take all your meals in your room. I think you had better take this suggestion as a requirement — & so keep on the safe side & out of range of foreign criticism & remark.
Sam softened his “requirement” by relating Livy’s “perfect sympathy” with Clara’s “joyful spirits…& happy sense of emancipation.” He wrote that Susy was “up & around again, though pale & not blithe.” He had been delayed in La Bourboule due to the riot there and was glad he chose to stay. He would start again the next day (July 5) and sail from Southampton Saturday noon July 7. He asked to be remembered to Mr. & Mrs. Wilson [MTP].
Abel W. Fairbanks, husband to Mary Mason Fairbanks, died in Boston, Mass. [MTLMF 274].