October 25 Wednesday – In Boston, Mass. Sam wrote and directed Isabel V. Lyon to answer Miller Reese Hutchison’s Oct. 24 telegram: “Dear Miss Lyon— / Please write him I am not able to undertake it.” [MTP].

Sam also wrote Miss Lyon to deposit $200 for daughter Clara, and that he would return to N.Y.C. the next day, expecting to be there “only a few days” [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: Speaks at the Author’s Club at the house of Mrs. J.H. Wright 28 Quincy St. / Cambridge / in the afternoon. / will spend the night with Col & Mrs. Higginson / 29 Buckingham St. [MTP TS 32]. Note: Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Boston house. See insert.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote on Editorial Office of the Atlantic Monthly, Boston: “At South Station take the 12.15 train for Green Lodge (first station after Reedsville) where we shall be mighty glad to meet you. / That King Leopold Soliloquy is a noble piece of work! / Remember that it is Friday the 27th that you are to come to us” [MTP; Hawkins 159].

Thomas S. Barbour wrote from Quincy, Mass. to advise Sam that the President would be in Washington Tuesday of next week, and that “should it prove practicable to arrange to see him next week, I can be at your call any day but Thursday. Friday or Saturday would be particularly favorable…” [MTP].

Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem to Sam.

Mark the gracious, welcome guest,
Master of the heroic jest;
He who cheers men’s dull abodes
With the laughter of the gods,
For the joyless ones of Earth
Sounds the reveille of mirth.
Well we meet, to part with pain,
But ne’er shall he or we be Twain [MTP].

Note: Miss Lyon wrote out the poem a bit more legibly and headed it: “Written on the occasion of a visit of Mr. Clemens to a meeting held in a favorite house in Boston”