February 19 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Abby Sage Richardson, explaining why he was not able to see her the previous Thursday as he’d told Daniel Frohman that Wednesday. Before the N.Y. trip, Richardson had sent them a breakfast invitation. They’d been unable to attend and they wished to thank her for it; Sam wished to exert his rights to emend the P&P play, and to remind her of the contract.

If I seem slow about answering, it is because your letter [not extant] has lain here while I was in New York playing sick-nurse until last night.

      …Your dramatization was to be submitted to me for my approval. It follows that emendations of it, by whomsoever made, must meet my approval. But observe how those conditions have been reversed: Your dramatization was not submitted to me at all, but my emendations of it are submitted to you for your approval.

      Mr. Frohman is in error. My MS was submitted to him alone. I needed no one’s approval, not even his. I was advancing a right, not a privilege. If the engagement to submit an early draft of the piece to me had been kept, my right to amend would have ceased when it went on the stage. But now my right is practically limitless.

Sam advised her that he’d be back in New York within the month and would call and talk the situation over with her.

Orion Clemens began a letter to Sam he finished Feb. 20. Sorry to hear of Livy’s illness, and offered more about Ma’s sufferings. “Mollie and I sat up with ma last night. Miss Craig sits up to-night. She is Ma’s attendant. Her sister teaches painting in Keokuk” [MTP].

S.J. Life wrote from Rye, N.Y. to Sam enclosing a hand-drawn invitation from the pupils of Rye Seminary performing an adaptation of P&P on Feb. 28 [MTP].

F.B. Wilson for Jewell Pin Co., Hartford wrote to Sam enclosing a dividend check for $45 on his 15 shares of stock. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Brer W. if this stock is salable may as well let it slide” [MTP].