February 17 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens. After admitting “My conscience blisters me for not writing you,” Sam wrote of the burdens causing him to seek solace out of the country:

Life has come to be a very serious matter with me. I have a badgered, harassed feeling, a good part of the time. It comes mainly of business responsibilities & annoyances, & the persecution of kindly letters from well-meaning strangers—to whom I must be rudely silent or else put in the biggest half of my time bothering over answers. There are other things, also, that help to consume my time & defeat my projects. Well, the consequence is, I cannot write a book at home. This cuts my income down. Therefore, I have about made up my mind to take my tribe & fly to some little corner of Europe & budge no more until I shall have completed one of the half dozen books that lie begun, up stairs. Please say nothing about this at present. We propose to sail the 10th April. I shall go to Fredonia to see you, but it will not be well for Livy to make that trip…[MTLE 3: 16].

Joe Twichell walked in, so Sam ended the letter to his mother.

Frank M. Pixley (1825-1895) wrote from San Francisco asking for a writing contribution for The Argonaut (founded by Pixley and Frank Somers in Apr. 1877) [MTP]. In a PS to his Feb. 26 to Howells, Sam wrote, “Have written Frank Pixley that I would speak to you when I see you, & if you were willing to simultane with the Argonaut, all right I would write him so; if you were unwilling I would indicate it by not writing. I didn’t tell him you wouldn’t, because I’m not authorized to speak for you—but told him to write you himself if he preferred. He is a good fellow, but Dam the Argonaut.” Note: Sam’s to Pixley is not extant., written likely on Feb. 26 or the day before.