hotel vendôme. commonwealth avenue
j. w. wolcott propr.
boston. Thursday A.M. 1880‸1.‸
Livy darling, I will write you just a line; then send down for my breakfast; then expect Osgood about 10.30 o’clock. I never saw Mr. Slee any more after I went to bed at midnight in the cars. I found, next morning, in Albany, that I could catch the Springfield train by rushing; so I rushed—in a hack—& was the last ppassenger that joined it.
Well, pretty soon I heard a couple of foreigners talking (it was in the smoking car,) & they had exceedingly good faces—in fact one of them had a face strongly resembling Charles Kingsley’s; & although he was evidently a laboring man, & was covered with cinders, his face was beautiful because of its sweetness.;—
Well, we hadn’t gone many miles when it turned out that this one, being deceived by the chuckle-headed station-names (both having a Boston in its name,) was on the wrong road.— So his ticket wasn’t good, & he must get off at the next station & go back & wait, &c So I called the conductor aside & paid the man’s fare to Boston & took his ticket. It had two days to run—so it is dead to-night. It was a “limited” ticket—second class. But what I started to say, was, that getting interested in those people’s faces, absorbed my attention & I just accepted, as final,) the fact that there was no drawing room car when I came aboard, & never looked out of the window to see if a change was made—but sweated it manfully out, for 4 hours, in that filthy smoking car; & at last, when I stood in the Springfield depôt & the train I had just vacated glided by, I noticed that it had upwards of a million drawing room cars attached. So I said Dam those foreigners. But there’s Osgood. I love you, darling.
S L C
Source text(s):Previous publication:
Harnsberger 1947, 56–57; LLMT, 204–5; Christie’s catalog, 1 and 2 February 1988, lot 468, partial publication.
Provenance:
See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance. The MS was sold to the Yushodo Company at Christie’s sale of the Estelle Doheny Collection on 1 and 2 February 1988.
