September 19 Tuesday – At Dr. Rice’s in New York, Sam wrote to Livy at 10:30 a.m. after a “full night’s sleep.” He awoke at 8 a.m. and just finished shaving when he wrote, soon to be on his way “to meet a business engagement.”

Yesterday was the crucial day — for the present. We skinned through. We’ve got another reef to cross 5 days hence, & another one 4 days after that. I think we’ll get over — & without the help of any old friend or relative.

Sam also wrote about a Goethe Club which Frank Fuller was “lately made essayist finder, or lecturer-finder.” Fuller offered a plan, which allowed Sam to accept to talk to the club without preparation, a plan involving Will Gillette’s sending a last-minute note of his inability to talk.

This is Fuller’s device for removing my main objection to talking — that I could not prepare a talk and wouldn’t. I said I would not go again to any place where the speech I made could by any possibility be suspected of being otherwise than absolutely impromptu — then a body feels no sense of responsibility & it makes no difference what you talk about or what you say, provided you ain’t dull. Fuller invented his expedient on the instant, & I accepted [MTP].

Note: Sam enclosed Russell Hinman’s Sept. 18 note. The New York Goethe Society was formed in 1875; no record could be found of Sam attending or speaking at the society; Robert Ingersoll spoke to several of their reunions; Fuller hosted at least one gathering of the Goethe Society at his New Jersey summer home (farm) [NY Times, Oct. 19, 1895 p.8].

Sam also wrote to an unidentified man his solution for dysentery, which he claimed Livy had used with success.

When it is summer time she eats a slice or two of fresh ripe watermelon, & scores a victory. If it is winter time — then there’s trouble! [MTP].