July 22 Thursday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Charles Dudley Warner, praising one of his works, unspecified. It may have been his novel, Their Pilgrimage (1886). Sam gushed over the work:

It’s got everything in it: pervasive & continuous interest, charming humor, flashing wit, noble scenery-painting, a perennially-bubbling happy life & the reader right in it & part of it, & love-passages that break up the most callous self-possession with their truth & strength & tenderness & beauty [MTP].

John Hopson Jr. of The Hopson & Chapin Mfg. Co. of New London, Conn. wrote to Sam in Hartford about improving his furnace system by a hot water circulation system. Franklin G. Whitmore forwarded the letter to Sam in Elmira. Sometime after this date Sam replied to Whitmore:

Treat him kindly if he calls on you. I’ve told him my furnace was born bad & can’t be improved; but he may argue with you, if he wants to.

John M. Hay wrote a short note from Cleveland about Whitelaw Reid seeing Edward H. House before receiving Hay’s letter.

I do not know why I shall get away — my wife threatens to take me East before long. I am very busy and not very well. You have, I suppose, never an ache or a pain [MTP]. Note: Hay’s letters were usually playful.