July 17 Wednesday – In Cambridge, William Dean Howells responded to Sam’s invitation of July 13. There was a chance he might be able to come for a day, perhaps even the next day. He would telegraph if he could come.

I want to see you and to talk. — My, how sad it all is about the Cranes! I read something in a strange book (The Physical Theory of Another Life) that consoled a little, namely: we saw and felt the Power of Deity in such fulness that we ought to infer the infinite Justice and Goodness which we did not see or feel. — I’ve been working hard this summer, and it will be a real blessing if I can only do a day’s work somewhere else. Yours ever [MTHL 2: 606]. Note: Physical Theory of Another Life by Isaac Taylor (1836).

In Hartford, Sam wrote two letters to Livy. In the first, he explained that the express-package she’d written about was a game from George Parsons Lathrop, whom Sam called a “half-breed” author. Excoriating Lathrop for assuming he could merely send the game to Elmira, Sam wrote:

Until this hour I had never heard a whisper against Lathrop, of any sort; & yet now I am as perfectly satisfied that he opened the Johnstown dam as I am of anything in the world. I love you & Sue. / SLC [MTP].

Sam’s second letter to Livy reveals much of his evolving thought about God, the Bible, and the hereafter, stimulated by Howells’ note of July 17. Sam felt that man had more “goodness over ungoodness” and he saw that in “all the various servants” that he knew, “various merchants, military men, the various Tom-Dick & Harrys of all walks” he had known. Still,

I detest Man, but nevertheless this is true of him. …

I don’t know anything about the hereafter, but I am not afraid of it. The further I get away from the superstitions in which I was born & mistrained, the more the idea of a hereafter commends itself to me & the more I am persuaded I shall find things comfortable when I get there.

Earlier in the day Sam had witnessed the operation of a machine that made envelopes, and he enclosed “a specimen of its work” [MTP].

Daniel Frohman for Lyceum Theatre wrote to Whitford [MTP]. Note: this is catalogued as to SLC.

Webster & Co. wrote to Sam. “The enclosed estimate of Ems, Pages &c. of your new book explains itself. It differs materially in some ways from the estimate which you made in pencil on the title page of your book, but I think the enclosed estimate is correct” [MTP].

Thomas R. Lounsbury for Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University wrote a note of introduction to Sam for Dr. N. Knapp, 25 West 24th St., NYC [MTP].