September 7 Tuesday – Another article attributed to Sam ran in the Express: “More Byron Scandal.”

“The aching desire that some people have for notoriety, to be talked about, even to be cursed rather than not to be noticed at all, can be the only possible excuse that I can imagine for this woman to lug into view family secrets in which the world can find nothing but the nastiest interest” [McCullough 37].

In Buffalo, Sam wrote two letters to Elisha Bliss, vouching for Mrs. William H. Barstow of Fredericksburg, Virginia (Kitty or Kate D. Barstow) to have the Virginia agency for Innocents Abroad [MTL 3: 339-41]. Note: William H. Barstow was helpful to Sam in obtaining his position with the Territorial Enterprise in 1862. Kitty was unable to pay for all the books ordered, so Sam had to pay Bliss. As a result of her debt, she did not write Sam for a decade, and then for financial help. See later entries on Kitty.

Sam also responded “With pleasure” to a request for autograph from John H. Gourlie, Jr. (1853-1904) [MTL 3: 341].

Sam also wrote to Whitelaw Reid thanking him for the positive notice in the New York Tribune. Sam wrote, “the book is selling furiously.” Reid had invited Sam to use the Tribune office as his own while in New York. Sam likewise invited Reid whenever he was in Buffalo or Elmira.

“—half of me is at Mr. Langdon’s in Elmira, you know, & so I am really writing over a fraudulent & assumed name when I sign myself Twain” [MTL 3: 342-3].

Lastly, Sam again wrote Livy—about love, her letters, the sermon she’d sent, his work, and Kitty Barstow [MTL 3: 344-5].