March 2 Saturday – William Dean Howells’ daughter Winifred Howells died after taking emergency treatments from Dr. S. Weir Mitchell at his clinic in Philadelphia. The treatments involved force-feeding and forced exercise for what was then seen as a catch-all category of female frailty called “neurasthenia.” At one point the young woman sank to 59 lbs. The immediate cause of death at the country retreat in Merchantville, was given as heart failure. It is now known that the combination of exercise and a diet of fatty foods can put tremendous strain on the heart in severely underweight people [Goodman and Dawson 295]. Thus ended a burden carried by William and Elinor for several years, yet Howells never truly recovered from the blow. It was sorrow that he would share with Sam, who lost Susy Clemens to meningitis a few years later.

He wrote to Edward H. House, answering a letter he found waiting (not extant).

There is no time to lose. If I have heedlessly, ignorantly, forgetfully, gone & made a contract which I had no right to make, it is a serious thing & I must move in the matter without loss of time. Send me the evidence at once; & send me copy of any & all writings, notes, letters, that throw light upon the thing [MTP].

Note: House had discovered that Abby Sage Richardson was producing P&P on the stage and wrote objecting, thinking he’d been given what amounted to a contract to do the same. Sam’s immediate reaction to House’s objection says that he did totally discount House’s claims, as he would later do. The conflict would wind up in the courts and cause a permanent rift between longtime friends.

Sam also wrote to Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe, explaining why the Paige typesetter “preliminary” exhibition had been stopped.

Our bottom reason…is this: the young man who came here from the Herald a New York paper, struck the keys, (Me simultaneously, which would spell eM) looked at the result, shook his wise head & remarked, “Ah, it transposes letters!” And with that verdict hanging from the hair on his teeth, he took his departure to report.

This machine has imperfections; we tell everybody so; we point them out; & we say: “This is not a public exhibition; we shall have a public exhibition in New York 2 or 3 months hence, & we shall then claim perfection…

We take the machine apart to-day; & when it goes together again, weeks hence, it shall be without flaw, & then I will ask for Mr. Boss again & the Herald’s representative.

O thank you once more for that good time in the Algonquin palace… [MTP].

Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe wrote Sam. Taylor was interested in the Paige typesetter. He’d received notice that an exhibition of the machine was canceled. He wrote:

I am expecting to see you next Thursday evening at Young’s after the Authors’ reading. The dinner party will be informal and you will not necessarily be required to wear a dress suit, but can go right from the plow [MTNJ 3: 457n164]. Note: Young’s Hotel was one of Boston’s finest dining spots.

Augustin Daly wrote to Sam sending the autographed pictures of Miss Ada Rehan promised [MTP].

R.S. Grant wrote to Sam:

Blame Wm Laffan for this seeming intrusion, and then from your forgiving by dining with me on Thursday Eve’g next…to meet Col. Chas Francis Adams and a few friends [MTP].

Note: Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835-1915) served as a colonel in the Civil War; great-grandson of President John Adams.

William Mackay Laffan wrote a note on the back of this letter:

If you accept this you will have a good time and meet some mighty good chaps. / I don’t know why you import to your letter of this a.m. the tone you do. Our men came back full of the machine. Rodwell said he had no doubt the battering of the type could be overcome and would be and that waw the only out he saw. As to the World chap I haven’t heard. Anyhow all those people know my views and are impressed by them to the degree we desire. Come along down here [MTP].

Henry O. Houghton wrote to Sam that he had his “kind invitation to examine a typesetting machine in Hartford on Tuesday or Wednesday.” Houghton begged off but promised to see it “at an early day” [MTP].

Webster & Co. wrote to Sam enclosing a statement for “Books sent out during February, 1889” totaling 6,991, of which the two Sheridan volumes each sold over 1,600 books; Feb. had been “a short & dull month” [MTP].