February 14 Friday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Greenwich, Conn.  

Dearest Jean, I must snatch a moment to tell you about Clara’s musicale of last night [Feb. 12]. It was very rainy, but no matter about 140 of the 160 guests invited came to the show—& very choice people they were, too, bright, & cultivated. Clara was beautiful to look at, & her voice was in great form. She was a picture of grace, & ease, & conscious mastery of the situation. Sometimes she was playful & cunning. Sometimes she was sweetly & eloquently moving & pathetic, sometimes she was a storm, sometimes she was a majestic tragedy queen; & in all her moods she was an expert in expression, & carried the house! It was a splendid triumph. Everybody praised her singing, praised it with enthusiasm, & praised her acting in the same measure. They couldn’t talk about anything else. Melville Stone, head of the Associated Press, was present, & he told Miss Lyon to furnish him any chance that might occur for him to be of service to Clara, & he would spread her merit from one end of the country to the other.

Miss Nichols played divinely, & she & Clara did a duet that so delighted the house that they had to do it all over again. And there were other encores. It was a great night.

At midnight I went to a big supper & ball at Sherry’s, & enjoyed it thoroughly till 4.05 a.m., when I came away with the last of the rioters.

I have been dictating, this morning, & am going to play billiards all the afternoon.

I hope you are well & happy. With ever so much love, dear Jean / Father [MTP]. Note: at Sherry’s, Sam met John Hay’s daughter, Mrs. Helen Payne Whitney, a poet [Gribben 765]. See his A.D. of Feb. 19.

Sam’s A.D. for this day continued to describe the Bermuda trips and give Angelfish accounts [Hill 209].  

Robert J. Collier wrote from NYC to Sam “Wont you let Sadie steal you away after the music to-night for half an hour? We are giving a little Valentine supper party at about twelve o’clock and we can bring you and return you in the motor at whatever time you want to leave” [MTP]. Note: see IVL below; Sam got in at 4:30 a.m.

Isabel Lyon’s journal: It was 4:30 this morning when the King came in from Valentine party at Sherry’s. He went up with Mrs. Collier after the Musicale here. I heard the mobile come down the avenue like a tragic giant June-bug & so I went to look over the balusters & see the King come running up the stairs like a happy exhilarated boy. He told me that something happened up at Sherry’s to make him sorrowful just after he arrived & that he told Robert Collier that he wanted to go to the urinal. R.C. said he’s just come from home, too. But the King said that he only wanted to cry this time, & his tears was too many to be disposed of in any other way.

The King’s eye is so inflamed that Dr. Hadley came down to look at it. I washed it out with ½ teaspoon full of boric acid to ½ glass of water [MTP: IVL TS 22].  

Charles Harvey Genung and Frederick Burr Opper for the Player’s Breakfast Committee wrote to Sam that they’d just been informed by George Riggs that Sam would come to their “little breakfast at the Players on Sunday the 23d at one o’clock P.M. / This is good news…and all hands will be delighted” [MTP].