September 26 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok offering “The Memorable Assassination” piece for $600, which he had just completed and sent to H.H. Rogers with a “photo or two of the Empress & the funeral procession” [MTP]. Note: Sam gave his future “New address: Hotel Krantz, Neuemarket Vienna.”
Sam also wrote to Katharine I. Harrison, letter not extant but referred to in this notebook entry:
“Wrote Miss H. the same & that I was now mailing to her said sketch. Gave her the Krantz address. / Gave it to Whitmore, McClure, Century, Harper & Cosmopolitan” [NB 40 TS 46].
Sam also wrote to Chatto & Windus, thanking them for books sent (unspecified) and requesting sheets only of TS in French and P&P in Italian; he wanted to have them “nicely bound” for a friend who didn’t read English. He then related being accused of dropping a mention of a lost man in his last book for the purpose of advertising a future one:
Curious. Months & months ago some stranger wrote me from somewhere & called my attention to a remark of mine in More Tramps Abroad, [FE] about Buckley who was 50 years lost among the native Australians—a remark suggesting that in our day such a man would be exploited by the magazines & made famous; & my correspondent reminded me that such a remark was calculated to breed a new Buckley-Crusoe
unload him onto the magazines & the public. The letter was irreverently chaffy, & went on to intimate that I was going to work that speculation myself, & had probably already picked out my man & was getting ready to cram him for his part, etc., etc., & that my remark was an advance-advertisement.
If de Rougemont were having better luck I should consider it a good financial scheme for me to come out & claim that I found him on his sand-spit & engaged him & posted him & financed him on a half-profit basis: but unless he sows up better than he is doing now I am not going to risk it, for I have a family on my hands [MTP]. Note: Louis de Rougemont (born Henri Louis Grin 1847-1921) was a wannabe explorer who wrote invented adventures in The Wide World Magazine during 1898; among his claims was that he spent 30 years living with aborigines in the Australian outback, and that he was worshipped as a god by them. For months readers argued against his so-called exploits in the London Daily Chronicle. Ultimately he was exposed as a fraud, but he traveled to S. Africa as an attraction, “The greatest liar on earth.” He died a pauper.
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.
Spiridon has given us that admirable portrait of Clara. He wanted to paint one of me, and said he would make short work of it and not tucker me out; so I sat, and he made the best portrait that ever was—and did it in eight hours. I never saw such a man to handle oils and skirmish with a brush. He is terribly accurate. From charcoal sketch to finish he never rubbed out a stroke; once made, it stayed. If he should offer to give the portrait to me I wouldn’t let him, but I should want to, all the same. I have never been anxiouser than other people to own a portrait before, but it is different this time; with a little pains this one could be taught to speak—not German, of course, but the other tongues. … P.S. Spiridon has been here & has given me that portrait. If I had purchased (which I refrained from doing) it would have cost me $1,000 & Clara $2,000 [MTHHR 365].