Livy dear, we are grinding out the days pretty fast, now that we are at last fairly into the last month & unquestionably on the homestretch. Major Pond is with us, now. He wanted to send his brother Edward, but we needed an expert, not a novice.

Chas. Warren Stoddard was in the audience last night, with the President & two other priests of his Catholic College of Notre Dame—pleasant people. Did I tell you, Stoddard is Professor of Literature there?—“he says they don’t require that the Professor of Literature shall know how to spell. Charley can’t spell any better than Jean.

Things looked squally Saturday evening. It was announced that unless we left (Davenport) that night at 11, we could not meet our Chicago engagement Monday evening. Cable calmly said “I cannot travel on Sunday.” I was furious. I said “You will travel on Sunday, just the same,—this time.” He said, “It is in my contract that I am not to travel on Sunday, & I shall not do it.” I said, “Damn your contract. This is the accident of a change of RR service since the appointment was made; & your contract cannot cover accidents, & has got to yield. I am not going to be made a plaything of in order to humor the corpse of a superstition of the Middle Ages.”

Better information settled the fact that he could start Monday morning at 8 & have abundance of time. If he m had missed that engagement, I was going to deliver a lecture about him to the Chicago audience. He failed to finish a promised & urgent article for the Century last Saturday night because 12 o’clock caught him unfinished. The Century people telegraphed him: “Which is the deeper sin—to keep a promise Sunday, or break it?”

I do not believe that any vileness, any shame, any dishonor is too base for Cable to do, provided by doing it he can save his despicable Sabbath from abrasion. In him this superstition is lunacy—no, iditotcy—pure & unadulterated. Apart from this & his colossal self-conceit, he is all great & & avarice, he is all great & fine; but with them he aver as ballast, he averages as other men & floats upon an even keel with the rest.

I love you, darling.