ing a single event.

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