September 14 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam replied to the (not extant) Sept. 12 letter of Joe Twichell in Blue Ridge, N.Y.
It’s all right about the Westminster, I am hoping to get converted, & I don’t wish to leave any promising bait unswallowed. I see that you wish me to help you deceive the guide into believing that you enjoy the distinction of being acquainted with me, & so, out of the weakness of inherent good-nature I consent, though I’m damned if I think it is good morals.
When Miss Lyon arrives at 8 p.m. from New York she will hunt up one of my books & I will autograph it & forward it, with pleasure. I did get the photograph, Joe, & am glad to have it, though in my opinion it slanders you. This is a common fault of photographs.
I leave for Fairhaven in the morning to go down in the yacht, to speak at the Associated Press banquet Wednesday night. This does not mean I am going to talk myself to death this season, like last. I shall keep pretty still next winter.
I shall return home, & Jean & I will remain until toward November, but Clara is already home in New York & will not go back to Norfolk. She found the weather too cold there. / With love to you both / Mark [MTP].
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam, not yet as a reply to Sam’s of this date, but as a follow up to Joe’s Sept. 12 (not extant).
In writing to you day before yesterday, I forgot something—this viz: shortly before I came away from Hartford I had a call from a gentleman residing in St. Paul Minn.—a leading lawyer of that city—name of White—father of a classmate of Joe’s at Yale—whose errand, it transpired, was to invite you and me to the Annual Dinner of the Minnesota “Society of Colonial Wars” to be held at St. Paul, any day of October we may choose, expences of the trip to be paid by said society. We are, of course, desired to contribute eloquence to the occasion. I told him to take the business directly to you. He said he hadn’t the courage. He was such a nice man that I couldn’t refuse to promise my service as go-between in the case. That promise I am now keeping. Will you go? I guess I will if you will. Anyhow, I would think seriously of doing it—which I do not feel the need of doing at present, I confess.
But “Colonial Wars”! doesn’t the subject fire your blood?
At your convenience please tell me what to say to Mr. White. Really, an answer is due him i.c. from me [MTP]. Note: see Sept. 14 ca. for his answer.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “‘Watterson has locked horns with Bryan.’ a good term. / I return to Dublin to find that the King is packed to go away again to Fairhaven tomorrow morning early. Woe is me The loneliness to be! He took my ‘Romeo & Juliet’ that I’ve been reading these days. AB went away this morning—that means more loneliness” [MTP TS 119-120].
Florenze Hartwig wrote from San Francisco to Sam, to share her troubles and woes. She enclosed a notice of a Musicale at Kohler & Chase’s Music Hall, Cor. Kearny and Post Streets for Dec. 12 at 3 p.m. It is difficult to decipher just what her complaints were, except that the people there were mean to her [MTP]. Note: “No Ans” was written at the top in pencil.
September 14 ca. – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote on Joe Twichell’s Sept. 14 “go-between” request letter: “Miss Lyon, tell him NO—I wouldn’t make such a journey to see the Resurrection”[MTP].