December 16 Saturday – Bret Harte wrote from New York to Sam about Parsloe showing up for a 10:30 A.M. appointment at 3 P.M. Bret read Parsloe “those portions of the 1st & 2d acts that indicated his role, and he expressed himself satisfied with it, and competent to take it in hand.” Harte was conciliatory, knowing he had ruffled feathers while staying with the Clemens family:

Remember me kindly to your wife, Mrs. Langdon and Miss Hess [Fanny Hesse, Sam’s secretary]. Tell Mrs. Clemens that she must forgive me for my heterodoxy—that until she does I shall wear sackcloth (fashionably cut,) and that I would put ashes on my head but that Nature has anticipated me, and that I feel her gentle protests to my awful opinions all the more remorsefully that I am away; say to Miss Hess she is n’t from Boston, and that I always agreed with her about the infamy of Man; tell Mrs. Langdon I forgive her for liking you so much, and her general disposition to weakly defer to your horrible egotism and stubbornness; and then kiss Susie for me and implor “the Ba” [Clara] on your bended knees, to add me to the Holy Family [Duckett 124-5].

Sam also wrote to Xantippe Saunders, inviting her to visit over the holidays. This note is lost [Notes with Dec. 20 to Perkins MTPO].