September 24 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller Johnson.
Monday, 6.15 p.m / Dear Charlotte, Mr. Sears has been here, & we chatted an hour & I told him what a high opinion (dam this empty pen) I hold of the book [The Cage 1907], & he spoke highly of it himself. When it is all ready to submit to magazines he will carry out your desire & let the magazine have it that will pay you the best price. I will elaborate this to-morrow at your house if I can there; & next day any how. / Sincerely [MTP]. Note: Joseph Hamblen Sears (1865-1946), writer, publisher and President of D. Appleton’s, publishers (1904-1918).
Sam also wrote a letter of recommendation for his coachman the past three years, George O’Connor. Since Clara was to sail for Germany on Sept. 26, Sam wouldn’t be needing O’Connor’s services. Sam gave his “permanent address” as Redding, Conn. [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I went to pieces & stayed in a dark room all day—suffering” [MTP TS 122].
September 24 ca. – N.Y.C.: Sam wrote to Maude Adams, actress. An extract survives:
….The essential point in the story, to me, is that a young girl, ignorant of the hard world & its ways, who becomes a woman suddenly, is so absolutely absorbed in a man—in his personality, his mind, his work—that she involuntarily devotes her life to him. She does not care whether she is married to him or not; she does not think or care what the world will think or say; she lies for him without hesitation; she leaves her father for him; she sacrifices herself again & again for him & his work. In so doing, she grows to be a woman in a few months. She learns many things; she develops into a knowledge of the world. In so doing, she also teaches the man, who knows the world well, many things of the heart & mind which he had never learned.
It is the story of the heart of a woman so big that all worldly forms are gladly ignored for the love of one man. That is what a real woman would do; & in so doing she would really make the man, too, if he had character to start with. And all of this take place amidst the familiar surrounding of the Chicago of to-day. It is a strong book, Peter Pan, & if you once begin it you will not be able to leave this man & woman until you have finished the story. / Sincerely your friend …. [MTP].