August 12 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Susan L. Crane.

Dear Aunt Sue: / It was a most moving, a most heart-breaking sight, the spectacle of that stunned & crushed & inconsolable family. I came back here in bad shape, & had a bilious collapse, but I am all right again, though the doctor from New York has given peremptory orders that I am not to stir from here before frost. O, fortunate Sam Moffett! fortunate Livy Clemens doubly fortunate Susy! These swords go through & through my heart, but there is never a moment that I am not glad, for the sake of the dead, that they have escaped.

How Livy would love this place! how her very soul would steep itself thankfully in this peace, this tranquillity, this deep stillness, this dreamy expanse of woodsy hill & valley! You must come, Aunt Sue, & stay with us a real good visit. Since June 26 we have had 21 guests, & they have all liked it &  said they would come again. I wish Jervis would run up here when he is in New York.

And Charley too, but—(this in your ear, privately), how can I ask Ida? She has kept back those little heirlooms all those years, & by that conduct she made Livy shed many a tear—which I never expect to either forget or forgive. No, I can’t invite her, and so I don’t know how to invite Charley. I want him, but I can’t put upon him—& upon myself—the discourtesy of not including his wife.

And truly, this is pitiful—I clearly realize it. For God, & God alone, is responsible for whatever Ida or any other person, black or white, pagan or christian, does or says in this silly & villainous life. And so, how can I blame Ida for keeping back the trinkets when she was in no way to blame? Well, in my mind I do not blame her, but only in my heart. That is to say, God blames her, in my heart. I would not like to be as inconsistent as God is. Nor as incandescent.  

Jessus but it is a beautiful day here! Come, Aunt Sue! / With love & ever so much love. / … Samuel [MTP].

Sam also wrote to William Dean Howells.

Dear Howells:

Won’t you & Mrs. Howells & Mildred come, & give us as many days as you can spare, & examine John’s triumph? For to my mind it is a triumph. It is the most satisfactory house I am acquainted with, & the most satisfactorily situated.

But it is no place to work in, because one is outside of it all the time, while the sun & the moon are on duty. Outside of it in the loggia, where the breezes blow & the tall arches divide-up the scenery & frame it.

It’s a gastly long distance to come, & I wouldn’t travel such a distance to see anything short of a memorial museum, but if you can’t come now you can at least come later when you return to New York, for the journey there will be only an hour & a half per express-train. Things are gradually & steadily taking shape inside the house, & Nature is taking care of the outside in her ingenious & wonderful fashion—& she is competent, & asks no help & gets none. I have retired from New York for good, I have retired from labor for good, I have discharged my stenographer, & have entered upon a holiday whose other end is in the cemetery. / Yours ever / Mark [MTHL 2: 832-3]. Note: Josephine Hobby was the stenographer discharged; she had been hired in 1906.

Sam also wrote to Dorothy Quick.

Dorothy dear, I wrote you a number of days ago, & mailed it to Epping, but I don’t think you’ll get it, because I couldn’t make sure of the address you gave me. If it is Dow, you should write it like this: DOW—not like this [scribbles] (which is the way you wrote it). Don’t ever again write a proper name in any but CAPITALS—do you hear?

But you’ll never get this, so why should I go on writing? / With lots of love [written sideways on envelope:] You careless little rascal, why don’t you write addresses plainer? SLC [MTP; MTAq 199 in part].

Sam also wrote to three Angelfish, one being the above to Dorothy, the other two not extant but referred to in Sam’s Aug. 13 to Blackmer. One of these missing two letters was undoubtedly to Dorothy Sturgis, who evidently answered Sam’s Aug. 12 in time for him to send a reply on Aug. 15; see entry [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers).

Dear Mrs. Rogers,—I believe I am the wellest man on the planet to-day, & good for a trip to Fair Haven (which I discussed with the Captain of the New Bedford boat, who pleasantly accosted me in the Grand Central August 5) but the doctor came up from New York day before yesterday, & gave positive orders that I must not stir from here before frost. It is because I was threatened with a swoon, 10 or 12 days ago, & went to New York a day or two later to attend my nephew’s funeral & got horribly exhausted by the heat & came back here & had a bilious collapse. In 24 hours I was as sound as a nut again, but nobody believes it but me.

This is a prodigiously satisfactory place, & I am so glad I don’t have to go back to the turmoil & rush of New York. The house stands high & the horizons are wide, yet the seclusion is perfect. The nearest public road is half a mile away, so there is nobody to look in, & I don’t have to wear clothes if I don’t want to. I have been down stairs in night-gown & slippers a couple of hours, & have been photographed in that costume; but I will dress, now, & behave myself.

That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my brain. . . Doctors do know so little & they do charge so much for it. I wish Henry Rogers would come here, & I wish you would come with him. You can’t rest in that crowded place, but you could rest here, for sure! I would learn bridge, & entertain you, & rob you.

With love to you both./ Ever yours,…  [MTHHR 651-2].

Elisabeth Marbury wrote a short note to ask Sam if he was “willing to allow Mr Colwell a further 6 months extension on A Yankee in King Arthurs Court?” [MTP]. Note: M. Worth Colwell.