April 19 Thursday – In Hartford Sam responded to a letter from his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon (not extant, but from Sam’s letter, about Apr. 12), mostly about Livy, who was “getting steadily along & regaining her health by sure degrees.” Livy missed the late Dr. Cincinnatus Taft, but was “thoroughly satisfied” with the current physician, Dr. E.W. Kellogg, and wanted “no substitute for him, nor accept of any.” Sam was involved in more copyright matters and would soon make another trip for the Library of Humor’s release:

…I was so perplexed & fretted with a Canadian copyright matter the past five or six days, that I just simply forgot to write you, & that is the fact; & right now & here I make apology & sue for pardon. I go to Montreal to-night, & get back again in 48 hours; & I shall be glad enough to end the bothersome cabling London & telegraphing New York & Canada. I have wished the book [Library of Humor] was in Jerico a good many times [MTP].

Note: In Sam’s Mar. 7 to Chatto, he’d given Apr. 21 as the Canadian release date for L of H.

Sam also wrote to Candace Wheeler, explaining why they wouldn’t be able to spend another getaway in the Catskills (near Mt. Onteora, N.Y. — See Aug. 25, 1885 entry & others in Vol. I). He wanted to get Livy to Quarry Farm as soon as she was well enough and let her “fetch up her strength” there the entire summer [MTP].

Sam left Hartford for Montreal.

Webster & Co. per Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam on publishing matters, including plates to their Canadian publisher, Samuel E. Dawson. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Don’t want those other books. Get right to work on the Genl” [MTP].