February 14 Monday – William Dean Howells wrote again to Sam.

That invention of casting brass was to have been applied to wall-paper printing, wasn’t it, if the castings could be made free of air-holes? What was the technical phrase for this elimination of air-holes? I want to use this invention in my story [April Hopes (1888)]. — I’ve just read your speech to the publishers. Mrs. Howells thought with me that it was delicious, but accused you of inventing that boy’s comp. [composition on girls] Did you?

Leathers’s departure leaves us free to use his name? I will look over that play again [MTHL 2: 584]. Note: the play was Colonel Sellers as Scientist, which became The American Claimant.

Charles Webster wrote to Sam about negotiations for the Beecher book. It was to include Beecher’s Life of Christ, those plates turned over to Webster & Co., and would have appeared with the autobiography. Beecher had shown a synopsis of the work, which Webster reported was,

…a story of his “inner life”…. Detail and minutia of his life at every stage, as a child, youth, young man, just entering the service of Christ, and minister [MTLTP 212n1].

Major James B. Pond was the go-between in these negotiations, and asked for an advance of $5,000 for Beecher and $4,000 for himself. Pond claimed that “some parties” had “placed a check of not very small dimensions upon his [Beecher’s] desk” [MTLTP 213n2]. Note: In the end the advance was paid to Beecher, but Pond accepted $1,000 with a $500 additional bonus to be paid upon delivery of the manuscript

Orion Clemens began a letter he finished on Feb. 15.

This afternoon an editor of the Democrat of this city asked me if he could get a photograph and biography of Ma, of extended length, for the St. Louis Globe, if he should write it. As your reputation is the cause of this idea, I thought it prefer to give you an opportunity of objecting to it’s [sic] being written at all…[MTP].

John W. Chapman had just received Sam’s Feb. 12 asking for information about Leathers. Chapman related a full account of his four months of contact with Leathers, and his desire to raise money to go west [MTP].

J.F. Swords wrote from Hartford to Sam that one share, par value $100, was being reserved for him in the new Hartford Amusement Association. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Base-ball. No.” [MTP].