October 7 Saturday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote a long letter to Frederick A.
Duneka about “A Horse’s Tale.” Proofs sent to me here before October 17 or to 21 Fifth Avenue, after November 3, will get immediate attention…I’ve made a poor guess as to the number of words. I think there must be 20,000. My usual page of MS. Contains about 130 words; but when I am deeply interested in my work and dead to everything else, my hand-write shrinks and shrinks until there’s a great deal more than 130 on a page…this tale is written in that small hand.
This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional—it was a good while before I found it out [MTP: Cushman file]. Note: Sam also said he wanted it illustrated “considerably. Not humorous pictures.”
Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to George B. Harvey, to ask a favor of allowing Robert J. Collier to use one of Sam’s short stories in his Short Story Classics, preferably a best one. “He has telegraphed & asked me to make this appeal to you & I am doing it not reluctantly but heartily.”
Yesterday afternoon—
You know there is only one trustworthy test of a book: will it read aloud? Jane Eyre would have read aloud; so I judge that the test was not applied, otherwise the first publisher would have accepted it instead of the last one.” [Sam encouraged Harper’s to try the test with “about 6 persons present.”]
Yesterday afternoon we gathered our jury at 5: a historian; his German-English wife, daughter of the house of Von Bunsen; their daughter, aged 15; Nancy, Daughter of Brush the artist; her brother, 18 by the almanac [Gerome Brush], but 30 in mental growth; Jean; Miss Lyon.
The candidate was “A Horse’s Tale.” One-half was read before dinner, & occupied an hour & a half (I am—intentionally—a slow reader); the second half occupied from 8 until 9:30—so the reading was 3 hours altogether.
The verdict was to my taste.
[Sam wrote he felt “an unusual interest in it almost a mother’s interest in twins”. He also shared plans for his 70th birthday bash and urged Harvey to: “get to work & meditate beer & sandwiches & good friends & a good time in a smug place, & late hours there to.” He wanted Rogers, Twichell, Rice, Quintard, and Augustus Thomas there. He also wished he could be at the Choate dinner, Lotos club on Oct. 21 but had to be in Boston on that date “to do things (privately, in a drawing-room…proper things)”] [MTP: Cushman file].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Gerome Brush stayed all night. He is quite remarkable and reminds one of Shelly in Mr. Clemens’s article on the “Defense of Harriet Shelly,” but only in his intellectual qualities which showed themselves at a very early age, just as Gerome’s do. He has made Jean feel the uselessness of the days she is living, doing nothing of value. Everything to be called a “whim”. It’s written on all her doors. So she has decided to at least carve and try to finish up the box for Mrs. Loomis and I gave her some Emerson to read too, for Raphael and Gerome both quote from Emerson [MTP TS 104].
Thomas S. Barbour for the Congo Reform Assoc. wrote to Sam: “I think there is no question that an adverse influence is holding back editorial comment [on the King Leopold Soliloquy pamphlet] in some quarters, but it will have much to do to keep the work from the public” [MTP].
This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional—it was a good while before I found it out [MTP: Cushman file]. Note: Sam also said he wanted it illustrated “considerably. Not humorous pictures.”
Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to George B. Harvey, to ask a favor of allowing Robert J. Collier to use one of Sam’s short stories in his Short Story Classics, preferably a best one. “He has telegraphed & asked me to make this appeal to you & I am doing it not reluctantly but heartily.”
Yesterday afternoon—
You know there is only one trustworthy test of a book: will it read aloud? Jane Eyre would have read aloud; so I judge that the test was not applied, otherwise the first publisher would have accepted it instead of the last one.” [Sam encouraged Harper’s to try the test with “about 6 persons present.”]
Yesterday afternoon we gathered our jury at 5: a historian; his German-English wife, daughter of the house of Von Bunsen; their daughter, aged 15; Nancy, Daughter of Brush the artist; her brother, 18 by the almanac [Gerome Brush], but 30 in mental growth; Jean; Miss Lyon.
The candidate was “A Horse’s Tale.” One-half was read before dinner, & occupied an hour & a half (I am—intentionally—a slow reader); the second half occupied from 8 until 9:30—so the reading was 3 hours altogether.
The verdict was to my taste.
[Sam wrote he felt “an unusual interest in it almost a mother’s interest in twins”. He also shared plans for his 70th birthday bash and urged Harvey to: “get to work & meditate beer & sandwiches & good friends & a good time in a smug place, & late hours there to.” He wanted Rogers, Twichell, Rice, Quintard, and Augustus Thomas there. He also wished he could be at the Choate dinner, Lotos club on Oct. 21 but had to be in Boston on that date “to do things (privately, in a drawing-room…proper things)”] [MTP: Cushman file].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Gerome Brush stayed all night. He is quite remarkable and reminds one of Shelly in Mr. Clemens’s article on the “Defense of Harriet Shelly,” but only in his intellectual qualities which showed themselves at a very early age, just as Gerome’s do. He has made Jean feel the uselessness of the days she is living, doing nothing of value. Everything to be called a “whim”. It’s written on all her doors. So she has decided to at least carve and try to finish up the box for Mrs. Loomis and I gave her some Emerson to read too, for Raphael and Gerome both quote from Emerson [MTP TS 104].
Thomas S. Barbour for the Congo Reform Assoc. wrote to Sam: “I think there is no question that an adverse influence is holding back editorial comment [on the King Leopold Soliloquy pamphlet] in some quarters, but it will have much to do to keep the work from the public” [MTP].
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