January 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. He informed him of Ned House’s visit, a story Charles Dudley Warner had told of a faulty will for the late Mrs. Dan Fisk, and enclosed a Jan. 1 letter from Hattie Gerhardt. The Gerhardts were in Paris, where Karl was studying art, and had enjoyed a visit from the Warners. Sam found purity in nineteen-year-old Hattie’s letters:

“If I had that child’s artless ways of saying the moving thing, I would quit humor & write on the higher plane. No matter how brief a note she writes, or how scrawly or ill-spelled it may be, she is always sure to get in a sentence or two that makes me think the Creator intended her for a writer” [MTHL 1: 384].

Sam also wrote to Chatto & Windus, enclosing a slip he wished pasted in the front page of P&P and sent to: “William Smith, Esq / Osborne House / Morley, near Leeds, / England” [MTP].

Orion wrote to Sam that he had shipped the final manuscript of “Autobiography of a Crank,” some 2,523 pages [Fanning 194-5].

R.B. Buchanan wrote from Chicago requesting Sam’s autograph with “some sentiment” [MTP]. Note: though Clemens usually complied with requests for a simple autograph, he nearly always refused or ignored those for more.

Louis Fréchette wrote another note in French, referring to the Springfield Republican [MTP].

A.V.S. Anthony wrote his “profound thanks” for P&P [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “A.V.S. Anthony, Engraver”

Winifred Howells wrote from Boston thanking Sam the “beautiful book,” P&P. “The binding is so exquisite that I hardly dare handle it” [MTP].