November 1 Wednesday – In London, England Sam replied to Edward Everett Hale’s note of Oct. 11. Hale (1822-1909) was an American author and Unitarian minister; Nathan Hale, Revolutionary hero executed by the British was his great uncle. Edward had written Sam about his article on Christian Science.

I thank you ever so much for your note.

I wrote 3 articles. Mrs. Clemens suppressed two of them because in them I was trying to prove that all men are born crazy, & that that, by help of some other circumstances, secures perpetuity & a wide dominion for the new fad [Christian Science].

The thing is on a cash-&-piety basis, its powers & authorities are centralized in a close (& irresponsible) corporation, & it is as well organized a Trust as the Papacy itself. It will give hordes of people of both sexes an easy chance to make money, without having to waste a week on education or apprenticeship; before Mrs. Eddy is cold in her grave her disciples will add her to the Godhead & teach their children to worship her. Then, persecution will grow brisk, & will result in the usual boom—& the game is made! …The human race was born crazy—the indestructible isms of the ages prove it—& C.S. offers the best chance it has ever had to spread itself & have a wild good time [MTP]. Note: Sam’s letter was on letterhead bearing 30 Wellington Court, Albert Gate, an address he’d previously kept secret except to Poultney Bigelow. See Gribben 285 for Hale, who is best known for his story, “Man Without a Country,” a phrase Sam borrowed from time to time.

Sometime during his stay at the hotel while using the letterhead bearing the address, that is, between Nov. 1, 1899 and June 26, 1900, Sam wrote to R. Howard. Krause.

“It is too bad. We are un come atable till Tuesday a trifle after 5. Could you come then? It is only tea, but is good tea. We wish it were something more substantial, but we can’t ask a Christian to eat the dinners they provide here; it would be suicide on the Christian’s part & assassination on ours” [MTP]. Note: R. Howard Krause, sometimes seen as Rudolph H. Krause.

James Henry Wiggin wrote from Roxbury, Mass. to Sam. He had rec’d Sam’s of Oct. 12 and “taken the liberty of alluding to it in my addresses on the C.S. subject since then, which have attracted some notice in Boston, N.Y., and other papers. As to using my name to ‘silence C.S. Objections’, Why not? ”[MTP].