December 17 Sunday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy, enclosing the “Tale of the Dime-Novel Maiden,” and describing his new digs, and the difficulty of waiting:

My new room is large & nicely carpeted & be-rugged. It has a couple of pieces of elegant furniture in it, & two handsome mirrors, together with a round centre-table, and open fireplace, 6 electric light, 7 gas burners, 24 pictures on the walls, 7 easy-chairs & a sofa; also a large bath room with gas & electrics in it. I hope to be able to do some work in it — at least during the three or four days I must wait before Mr. Rogers is ready to go to Chicago. It costs $3 a day, & my food costs about 80 cents when I eat in the house — which is not often the case, excepting breakfast.

Waiting is hard to bear. Yes, I must get to work or my spirits will go down. Many a time I think of Joan of Arc. You are living close to where she was wounded in the siege: & a few miles away is Compaigne, where she rode forth on her last charge & found the gates treacherously closed against her when she was overmatched & driven back. I will go to Compaigne when I come. If I but had the manuscript here! — but I haven’t.

Sam closed with love and advice that Livy “find that Christian Scientist for Susy” [MTP].

Meanwhile, in Paris, France, Livy wrote to Sam:

Your dispatch reached me last night and greatly rejoiced my heart because it does look as if perhaps you were going to be able to come here some day. Thank you so much for sending it. It also seems as if perhaps you were beginning to see your way through financially. How is Webster & Co. situated now? Are they working out of debt?

You should have been here today to see Clara imitate you telling them stories and eating at the same time, it was just as funny as it could be. She bit a piece of bread exactly as you bite it. She said “I don’t know what it is but Papa always seems to be having a quarrel with his piece of bread to make it let go.”

The doctor had visited and examined Susy; she was thought to be “not sufficiently develloped [sic]” needing gymnastics and massage to develop her chest. Livy liked the doctor [LLMT 284-5].

Sam also wrote to Annie E. Trumbull, passing on the praise of Charles Dudley Warner for her play, The Masque of Culture, performed at Unity Hall in Hartford on Dec. 15. Sam urged her to perform it again. He confessed duplicity in reporting perfect health to Livy, “to prepare her to disbelieve the newspaper reports.” He was out of doors this day for the first time since “last Thursday” (Dec. 14) [MTP].