August 14 Friday – The Clemenses were back in Elmira with their children, the Langdons and the Cranes. Livy was exhausted by the trip, still not fully recovered from the birth of Clara [MTL 6: 205].

Sam replied to the Aug. 8 of Augustin Daly, playwright and drama critic who managed his own company and a new theater at 28th Street near Broadway in New York. Daly had offered to produce The Gilded Age on stage. Sam dodged the offer in this letter, claiming he was “debarred by a book contract,” though nothing in his contracts with Bliss forbade stage plays [MTL 6: 206].