Livy dear, you cannot imagine anything like this idiotic Sunday-superstition of Cable’s. I would throttle a baby that had it. It is the most beggarly disease, the pitiful, the most contemptible mange that ever a grown creature was afflicted withal. The only time the man ever grows nervous, the only time he ever shows trepidation, is when some quarter of a minute of his detestable Sabbath seems threatened. Saturday night a lady whom I seem to have known as a little girl in Buffalo gave us a reception; as midnight approached, I had gone upstairs with the gentlemen to smoke. Suddenly Cable appeared in the door, & stopped, for all were listening to an elaborate anecdote, & the speaker was specially addressing me. Cable saw that to interrupt would be bearish rudeness. He paused; then, the time being close to 12, he cast manners aside & came & bent over me & whispered that he must be going. I gave him curt warning to cease from his interruption (the anecdote was silenced & waiting); he held still a moment, then bent down again & whispered, “I will take the carriage, & send it back for you from the hotel.” I said aloud, “You will do nothing of the kind— simply wait.” Ah, if I had but know[n] it was his shabby S and hateful Sunday that was moving him to this, he would have walked home through the slop. That was really it. It would be unholy to ride home in a hack after 12. It is perfectly loathsome. Since I have been with this paltry child, I have imbibed a venomous & unreasoning detestation of the very name of the Sabbath. Saturday he was out of linen & wanted a couple of shirts washed; & you should have seen the nervousness with which he questioned the call–boy as to whether they could be done & brought up by such & such an hour. The boy was uncertain, as to 9 p.m., but finally said, “I know they can be done by half past eleven, or eleven, & I’ll bring them up in the morning.” “No—no!—I will not have them in the morning. Except they can certainly & surely come up this evening, I will not let them go at all!”

He is in many ways fine, & great, & splendid; & in others paltriness itself. In Napoleon resided a god a little bit of an mere man.

I have modified Cable’s insulting & insolent ways with servants, but have not cured them; may–be they cannot be cured. Pond says the servants of the Everett House all hate him. Says that when C. is paying his own expenses, he starves himself; & when somebody else is paying them his appetite is insatiable. O, do you know, that for a year or two he was longing to hear Beecher, but would not cross the river on Sunday? He wouldn’t cross the bridge on Sunday.

Well, I love you, anyway, darling