March 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion. Captain Edgar “Ned” Wakeman had written to Sam asking him to write the story of Wakeman’s life. Sam’s response has been lost, but he wrote his brother:

“I have written him that you will edit his book & help him share the profits, & I will write the introduction & find a publisher” [MTL 6: 82].

Note: Wakeman died in 1875. Sam did not write the introduction and Orion did not edit the book, The Log of an Ancient Mariner was published in 1878 by Wakeman’s daughter [MTL 6: 82; Rasmussen 502].

Dr. John Brown wrote to Sam.

My dear friend—Pleasant it is to get your letters—you write to me just as you write to the public, & what is better, to the public as you write to me—this perfect naturalness—so rare—you have—It is good in you to write & keep up the line of life & affection between us—it is one of my best pleasures & I trust it will never fail—You are wonderful buyers, you Americans 40,000 in two months & £3,000 of plunder—Here nobody buys books they read them from Clubs &c—with you, not only are you better educated men caring for reading—but you are richer & every house has its own library— I don’t know what literature will come to with us—I suppose it will burn out, as we ourselves are fated to do—Yes, my dear friend I know you bless God for the wifie & the “bairn”—& they doubtless bless the same Almighty for you—I wish you had known my John’s mother—I got Darley’s “Margaret” all safe & surely I acknowledged it at once? it is full of genius—has both the vision & the faculty—& is the best bit of American art I have seen—it is constantly out & greatly admired—The story I am going to read in a month, at some country inn—along with your books. I’ll take nothing else—except the old book—I sent a splendid Collie from Blair Atholl to Prof. Forsyth at West Point—a black & tan of the first water—he is called Cheviot—if you are near that nursery of your warriors, ask for him—The Judge is in great force & our Club is brewing—the whistle is the Sine Quâ Non, the respective households of the members are made hideous by our old whistling—I hit upon it now & then—most excruciatingly—

      I have got through the winter fairly—we are all well—John came in from the New Club Ball at 4 this morning

      Barclay & his cordial wife are off to Rome with “The Innocents”—I hear poor accounts of Motley—I knew Sumner, a little—a big rather than a great man—but honest & incorruptible & high hearted—but without an[y] spark of humour—& with a very strong sense of himself—Write to me again, & give & take our loves— / Yrs & her’s ever Affly / J. Brown [MTPO]. Notes from source: “The ‘Judge’ was Brown’s friend Alexander Nicolson (1827–93), a sheriff substitute (an undersheriff who hears cases) and also a lawyer, writer, and scholar of Gaelic and Greek. Clemens met him and the others mentioned here—George Barclay, Brown’s son, John (Jock), and Brown’s younger brother, William—in Scotland in 1873.”