January 24 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss.

Orion says you hardly know whether it is good judgment to throw the Sketch Book on the market & interfere with the Innocents. I believe you are more than half right—it is calculated to do more harm than good, no doubt. So if you like the idea, suppose we defer the Sketch Book till the last. That is, get out the big California & Plains book first of August; then the Diamond book first March or April 1872—& then the Sketch book the following fall. Does that strike you favorably? [MTL 4: 309].

Sam also wrote a note of thanks & reply to a fan and reader, C.F. Sterling of Buffalo who had written on Jan. 21 [MTL 4: 309-10].