August 28 Friday – In Guildford, England Sam finished his Aug. 26 letter to Livy:
Noon, Friday. There is yet time to add a line before posting this for tomorrow’s steamer.
No letter from Hartford yesterday, from any relative or friend! I do not know how to describe my disappointment. Sue, & Jean, & Lilly Warner all believed, up to noon of Saturday the 15th, that you were going to remain here. Did they imagine you would be content with a letter a week? I am amazed. Letters written any day for 7 days — those tremendous days! — from Sue’s last letter (11th) to the evening of the 18th — that disastrous day, that day of imperishable memory! — would all have been in my hands by now. But there is not one line.
Sam then quoted the fateful cablegram he received on Aug. 19. He could not believe that no follow up letters had arrived.
Only one individual in all America has sent me a line either of news or regret. It is a word of sympathy from — Harper & Brothers. It came this morning when I was watching for the postman. I thank them — & out of my heart I do it.
I have not a word of blame for aunt Sue — her heart & her hands were full. I have only gratitude for her. But I think that Jean could have remembered me. Or Katy, or Twichell, or somebody [LLMT 325-6].
In his letter to Livy, Sam included a notice from the Daily Telegraph (London) for a three-night appearance by Mark Twain at Protestant Hall for Sept. 19, 21 and 23 — all now canceled — to an unidentified person. On the left margin he wrote:
Mr. Smythe asks me to send this to you. It reads as if it had been meant for that Biography which can now never be finished. Please find it & bring it with you. And the book of the children’s sayings, too.
[MTP; Christie’s Lot 28 Sale 7700 June 9, 1993; avail. online]. Note: the reference of the bio is likely to Susie’s biography of her father. The MTP lists this as to “unidentified,” but judged here to be enclosed in the letter to Livy and meant for her. Thanks to JoDee Benussi for this and other Christie’s listings.
In his Aug. 30 Sam referred to a side trip with R.S. Smythe, his companion during this period, and according to the notice (above) probably still managing him for appearances:
Day before yesterday [Aug. 28] we went to the Castle; & it seemed kinsman to me, for I am a ruin, too. But there was solace for me there, & healing: for all that danced & were happy in those once sumptuous halls a thousand years ago, & danced & were very light of heart, have gone the way of all that dance & are happy, & in my time I also shall be set free [LLMT 327].
Note: Sam also quoted verse from Benjamin F. Taylor’s “The Long Ago.” Guildford Castle, Surrey is thought It is thought to have been built shortly after then 1066 invasion of England by William the Conqueror.