February 10 Saturday – At about 8 PM, Sam went to the Hartford home of ex-Governor Marshall Jewell, three times governor, minister to Russia, and also Postmaster General in the Grant Administration. Sam stopped by to “beguile an idle hour for him with a yarn or two,” but was “received at the door with whispers, and the information that he was dying.” Jewell “died that night two hours after” Sam left. He wrote about the event to Howells on Mar.1 [MTHL 1: 427-8].

Sam inscribed The Stolen White Elephant to Margaret Warner [MTP].

In Florence, Italy, Howells wrote to Sam:

I have n’t written you because I’ve been ashamed to do so. Our two months in Florence have been the most ridiculous time that ever even half-witted people passed. We have spent them in chasing round after people for whom we cared nothing, and being chased by them. My story isn’t finished yet, and what part of it is done bears the fatal marks of haste and distraction [MTHL 1: 425]. Note: Howell’s current work, A Woman’s Reason had begun running serially in February’s Century Magazine.