January 7 Friday – In the wee hours after midnight, Sam wrote from Amenia, New York to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

Well, Mother Dear—You ought to see Livy & me, now-a-days—you never saw such a serenely satisfied couple of doves in all your life. I spent Jan 1,2,3,& 5 there, & left at 8 last night. With my vile temper & variable moods, it seems an incomprehensible miracle that we two have been right together in the same house half the time for a year & half, & yet have never had a cross word, or a lover’s “tiff,” or a pouting spell, or a misunderstanding, or the faintest shadow of a jealous suspicion. Now isn’t that wonderful? Could I have had such an experience with any other girl on earth? I am perfectly certain I could not. And yet she has attacked my tenderest peculiarities & routed them. She has stopped my drinking, entirely. She has cut down my smoking considerably. She has reduced my slang & my boisterousness a good deal [MTL 4: 3]. Note: Sam never quit smoking and soon resumed the other vices.

In the evening, Clemens lectured (“Savages”) in Egberts Hall, Cohoes, New York.