October 20 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam replied to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who wrote Oct. 17 after returning with his wife from a trip abroad. Sam and Thomas teased each other in their letters about Howells, dinner with Osgood; and a flower petal that was really an onion Aldrich had “plucked from Mike St. Sebastian’s grave” (relating to ch. 23 of IA, where Sam had written as part of his attack on the “old masters”); and a bit about St. Sebastian being recognizable by “his body…shot through and through with arrows” [MTL 6: 561-3].