January 18 Monday – J. Woulfe Flanagan, London Times reporter, wrote on mourning stationery to complain about Clara’s piano playing. The piano was on the common wall between the flats in Clara’s upstairs bedroom. “It is my misfortune never to get to bed before 4 a.m. as I work on a morning paper….Will you think me very rude & unneighborly if I ask you as a great favour not to play the piano in the mornings?” [MTP].
January 17-21 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:
Where the English beat us, is in fun in the Church (“elections” of Bishops & clerical rows in the graveyard) cant; charity in work & cash; unconscious arrogance; (my neighbor) adultery in high places; incompetent cooks.
October 19 Monday – Sam signed a “Reader’s Guarantee Form” for the Chelsea Public Libraries, in effect, a library card, giving his address as 23 Tedworth Square and his occupation as “private.” See a reproduction of the form in the Fall, 1998 MTJ p.31
October 16 Friday – In London Sam wrote to Edward M. (Ned) Bunce, sharing shock and sorrow over the loss of Susy.
Ah me, you knew how rare she was, & how far you would have had to go to find her peer.
We are so glad you had that last talk with her — it will be a grateful memory with us. …I have not forgotten, & shall not forget, that time that you and Henry Robinson offered to help me when all others failed [MTP].
October 15 Thursday – In London Sam sent a one-liner to an unidentified person: “Can be used to filled up a crack” [MTP]. Note: something is missing here.
October 13 Tuesday – At 23 Tedsworth Square in London Sam wrote H.H. Rogers.
I enclose answer to Mr. Harper’s question. You can retain it if you prefer, and convey the decision to him by your own hand.
October 12 Monday – Harper & Brothers wrote that they’d had no response to their May 12 question as to whether they might include some of Sam’s essays in a volume for their “Contemporary Essayists” series. Sam’s enclosure answer to them in his Oct. 13 to Rogers, would suggest Sam answered the May 12 letter, not this one [MTP].
October 11 Sunday – In London Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore responding to a recent letter. Whitmore hadn’t enclosed a newspaper notice of Susy that he said was enclosed. Livy wanted to leave the matter of the rugs in the Farmington Ave. house in Ellen O’Neil’s charge to take care of. He also agreed that they wanted the furnace & ceilings to be safe, but wanted to “let the expense stop there.”
October 9 Friday – At 23 Tedsworth Square in London Sam wrote to Douglas Garth about problems with the house they’d rented: the chimney was “broken and canted into the form of an elbow,” driving them out of the drawing-room when they tried to build a fire. Sam also wanted to pay for having some electric wire strung to hook up two or three lightbulbs in the room. Other than those needs Sam wrote,
We find ourselves most comfortably housed, & very very glad to be settled at home [MTP].
October 8 Thursday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but mentioned in the Oct. 20 to Rogers [MTHHR 240].