November 14 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Emily S. Hutchings, advising her what to do with rejected manuscripts.
I suspect—as you do also—that in these and like matters name and sex are not factors,—nothing counts but the product. As witness, Mahomet, Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Stowe, Howells, Lowell, Holmes, Harte, Sidney Smith, Hop Smith,—all common every day names in those people’s habitat, names commonly borne by everybody around. It is my belief that being a man won’t help the case any. But there is one thing that may: instead of giving the magazines a chance to reject four out of five manuscripts, do it yourself. For many many years that has happened to four out of five of my manuscripts, and there is a ton of ms. in my study, to show how many times I got ahead of the magazine editors without their knowing it. Where there is reasonable doubt in the case of the prisoner at the bar he has to have the benefit of that doubt and go free. When there is a reasonable doubt in the case of a ms. of yours, your instinct detects it every time, and you ought to lay that piece of paper away, until some future time, when the right way to treat the subject shall have come to you from that mill whose helpful machinery never stands idle—unconscious cerebration. But nothing is really lost: there is always a right way to treat a subject, and the U. C. will find it if you give it time; which time will not be short of two years and will often be five. I am speaking from personal experience [MTP: Cyril Clemens, Mark Twain: The Letter Writer, 1932, p.25-6].
George L. Houghton wrote from Marseilles, Illinois to Sam. “Kindly read the enclosed circular [not extant] and let me know if you can help me in introducing the invention described.” Houghton had experienced a lot of broken promises and obstacles and was willing to give a half-interest in the patent to whomever could help him.