February 3 Saturday – In New York on Players Club stationery, Sam wrote a response to Edwina Booth Grossman, whose request (not extant) concerned Sam’s communication with her late father, Edwin Booth (d. 1893).

If I had a line from his honored hand it would be at your command at any moment; but it happened that your father & I corresponded only with the tongue [MTP].

Note: Sam’s memory was faulty — he wrote Edwin Booth on Apr. 7, 1877 [MTLE 2: 38] after going uninvited backstage on Apr. 6; See Nov. 3, 1873 for first entry concerning Booth. The Century Co. was soon to publish: Edwin Booth: Recollections by His Daughter, Edwina Booth (1894). (Sam is mentioned once in the book, in a Nov. 18, 1883 letter from Booth to William Bispham about the luncheon that day at Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s, where Sam, Matthew Arnold, Charles Dudley Warner, and Oliver Wendell Holmes enjoyed a “feast.” See addenda to Vol. I.)

Sam also responded to some sort of invitation (not extant) from Arthur Sherburne Hardy (1847-1930), editor of Cosmopolitan (1893-5), saying it was a “splendid list of story-writers,” but “wouldn’t Howells join?” Sam was “so tuckered out with 5 months of daily & nightly fussing with business,” that he needed a long rest before he’d wade back into “interest in literature or anything else” [MTP; MTHHR 10].

Sam dined with Francis and Elizabeth Millet [Feb. 1 to Millet; NB 33 TS 53].

Orion Clemens wrote another long letter to Sam, this about his feelings at Sam’s impending business failures, and his perspectives on business. He mentioned that Sam Clark, the editor of the Gate City wanted the nomination for Congress [MTP].