December 31st, 1895.
New York.
The Players.
New Year's Eve.
[DEAR CHAS:]
I am not much of a letter writer these days, but I have
finished the novel and that must make up for it. It goes to
the Scribners for $5,000 which is not as much as I think I
should have got for it. I am now lying around here until the
first of February, when I expect to sail to Somerset's
wedding, reaching you in little old Firenzi in March. We will
then paint it. After that I do not know what I shall do.
The Journal is after me to do almost anything I want at my
own figure, as a correspondent. They have made Ralph London
correspondent and their paper is the only one now to stick to.
They are trying to get all the well known men at big prices.
I have had such a good time helping Mrs. Hicks in
Seymour's absence. She had about everything happen to her
that is possible and she is just the sort of little person you
love to do things for. She finally sailed and I am now able
to attend to my own family.
The Central American and Venezuelan book comes out on
February lst. Several of the papers here jokingly alluded to
the fact that my article on the Venezuelan
boundary had inspired the President's message. Of
course you get garbled ideas of things over there and
exaggerated ones, as for instance, on the Coxey army. But you
never saw anything like the country after that war message.
It was like living with a British fleet off Sandy Hook.
Everybody talked of it and of nothing else. I went to a
dinner of 300 men all of different callings and I do not
believe one of them spoke of anything else. Cabmen, car
conductors, barkeepers, beggars and policemen. All talked war
and Venezuela and the Doctrine of Mr. Monroe. In three days
the country lost one thousand of millions of dollars in
values, which gives you an idea how expensive war is. It is
worse than running a newspaper. Now, almost everyone is for
peace, peace at any price. I do not know of but one jingo
paper,
The Sun, and war talk is greeted with jeers. It
was
as if the people had suddenly had their eyes opened to what it
really meant and having seen were wiser and wanted no more of
it. Your brother, personally, looks at it like this.
Salisbury was to blame in the first place for being rude and
not offering to arbitrate as he had been asked to do. When he
said to Cleveland, "It's none of your business" the only
answer was "Well, I'll make it my business" but instead of
stopping there, Cleveland uttered a cast iron ultimatum
instead of leaving a loophole for diplomacy and a chance for
either or both to back out. That's where I blame him as does
every one else.
Sam Sothern is in Chicago and we all wrote him guying
letters about the war. Helen said she was going to engage
"The Heart of Maryland" company to protect her front yard,
while Russell and I have engaged "The Girl I Left Behind Me"
company with Blanch Walsh and the original cast.
We sent Somerset a picture of himself riddled with
bullets. And Mrs. Hicks made herself famous by asking if it
was that odious Dunraven they were going to war about.
My article was a very lucky thing and is greatly quoted
and in social gatherings I am appealed to as a final
authority.
The football story, by the way, did me a heap of good
with the newspapers and the price was quoted as the highest
ever paid for a piece of reporting. People sent for it so
that the edition was exhausted. The Journal people were
greatly pleased.
Yvette Guilbert is at Hammerstein's and crowds the new
music hall nightly, at two dollars a seat. Irving and Miss
Terry have been most friendly to me and to the family.
Frohman is going to put "Zenda" on in New York because he has
played a failure, which will of course kill it for next year
for Eddie, when he comes out as a star. I have never seen
such general indignation over a private affair. Barrymore
called it a case of Ollaga Zenda. They even went to Brooklyn
when Eddie was playing there and asked him to stage the play
for them and how he made his changes and put on his whiskers.
Poor Eddie, he lacks a business head and a business
manager — and Sam talks and shakes his head but is little
better. Lots of love and best wishes for the New Year.
DICK.
