January 21 Saturday – Sam may have been influenced by Howells’ comments of Jan. 20, and took Livy’s advice—He directed Charles Webster to examine the New York Tribune for evidence that Reid was persecuting him. Ned House may have also complained of similar treatment to Sam; Charles Dudley Warner certainly did complain [MTHL 1: 390n1].

Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster.

Suppose you put in an hour or two of your time for me at one of the big advertising agencies where they keep full files of the daily papers. Just quietly copy off & send to me every remark which the Tribune has made about me since the end of October, up to present date. Keep your own counsel; say nothing to anybody about this. As I understand it, these remarks have usually been brief original paragraphs on the inside pages, & borrowed slurs on the other pages. Copy them exactly, punctuation & all; & give the origin of the borrowed ones [MTBus 183].

Sam also wrote to Orion explaining that he didn’t give letters of introduction for someone he didn’t know, but if he knew the lady in question he’d recommend her to Lucy Hooper. He agreed to look at some manuscript, and said they didn’t have any photographs yet (of baby Jean?) but they were promised [MTP]. Note: he no doubt reassured Orion that he’d received the manuscript sent Jan. 18 [Fanning 195].

Sam then wrote to Lucy Hooper and enclosed it in the letter to Orion. The “young lady” in question:

…is recommended to me by my brother as being of excellent character & position, & as an able & facile translator of French into English & English into French. She desires opportunity to use her pen. If anybody in Paris can tell her whom to apply to, it is you; & if you can’t, you are the very person who can tell her so without causing her a pang [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Samuel Hollyer, an English-born engraver who worked in New York. Sam wrote that he had “taken the liberty to forward your favor of Dec. 31st to them [Chatto & Windus] this day” [MTP].

Sam’s Nov. 22, 1881 letter to W.H. Lentz ran in the Honolulu Saturday Press [MTP].

Thomas Nast’s cartoon of Sam, in Canada arranging for copyright, ran in Harper’s Weekly [Tenney 11]. See insert.