January 20 Friday – Howells, in a Boston boarding house where he might be close to his doctor, answered Sam’s Jan. 18 letter. Howells thanked him for the Gerhardt letter and remarked how “the ideal perfection of some things in life” led him to conclude, “never to meddle with the ideal in fiction….” He was just now recovering from a five-week stint in a sick bed due to exhaustion.

“I’m not myself, by any means. I’m five years older than I was two months ago. I may young up again, but that is the present fact. The worst of it is that I work feebly and ineffectually” [MTHL 1: 385].

He also gave Sam advice about the Whitelaw Reid flap:

“I told Osgood, the other day that I should write you about—or against—your dynamitic life of Reid; but I concluded not to do so, partly because I did not know how you would take unprovoked good intentions from me, and partly because I believe you will be sick of the thing long before you reach the printing point” [386].

Orion still had not heard from Sam about the arrival of the MS, “Autobiography of a Crank,” and wrote again asking Sam to send a telegram upon its arrival [Fanning 195].

Nathaniel J. Burton wrote that P&P had just arrived and would entertain his sick wife [MTP].

Hjalmar Boyesen wrote from NYC to decline a visit due to his wife’s illness [MTP].