November 30 Thursday – Sam’s 41st birthday was also Thanksgiving Day. From Twichell’s journal:

“Called on M.T.’s and found Bret Harte there again (He and M. are writing a play together) and had some talk with him” [Yale 126].

In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam and enclosed Millet’s letter (about painting Sam’s portrait). Howells also challenged Sam to write something better than “Helen’s Babies,” to “write what you said at dinner the other day about it.” Howells added about Sam’s recent visit for his Boston lectures,

Your visit was a perfect ovation for us; we never enjoy anything so much as those visits of yours. The smoke and the Scotch and the late hours almost kill us; but we look each other in the eyes when [you] are gone, and say what a glorious time it was, and air the library, and begin sleeping and dieting, and longing to have you back again [MTHL 1: 165].