November 17 Friday – In London, England Sam replied to H.H. Rogers (incoming not extant but before his mother’s death on Nov. 9), asking that their money be put “into a safe thing which stands to rise in value.” Sam agreed with a suggestion (not specified) by Rogers about the Mt. Morris Bank. Unaware she had passed away on Nov. 9, Sam wrote he was glad Rogers’ mother was “up & about again.” He took another jab at Clarence C. Rice:

Putting yourself into that old poker-sharp’s hands!—a man embittered by his billiard-defeats & poker-defeats, & in all sorts of ways. Rice is going to get even with you this time—he holds all the cards.

I am going out & walk home, now & enjoy the fog. You couldn’t cut it with an axe [MTHHR 415-6]. Note: Sam was likely at his publishers, Chatto & Windus.

Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell

It is a great pity, Julia’s husband’s case, but it is plain there is nothing for it but surgery. Otherwise he could go to the Osteopaths in New York—their system & Kellgren’s seem to be the same thing. I never heard of Osteopathy till a week ago, & now I find that it is 20 years old in America & has a college in Missouri with 700 students, an eastern head quarters in Boston, 2,000 practitioners scattered over the Union & has gotten itself legalized in 9 states…

Livy says she is going to attend your church, whether I do or not. I think she’d like me to, for it is a principle with her to manufacture as many hypocrites as she can, where its a hypocrisy that’s smug & respectable. But I doubt if we can afford Hartford. The taxes there have risen 20 per cent in the past year, & the city is always improving our property at our expense. I think we must sell the house. We could have saved $10,000 of useless expenses if we had done it 9 years ago. With love to you all…” [MTP].

Sam also wrote a few lines to Pamela A. Moffett, asking her to send “a goodly lot of Osteopathic literature” [MTP].