February 20 Tuesday – In New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote to Livy. The first part of the letter is lost. What remains opens with notes about a conference with Rogers:

He is fast coming to the opinion that I had better assume the debts & close up the concern [Webster & Co.] & turn over my own books to the Century Co on the best terms I can get. They want my books badly, but don’t value any of the others.

Evidently Livy had shared a letter from her longtime friend Alice Day; Sam called it “eloquent,” and railed against the absence of “mind cure” doctors in France for Susy. “She must come here,” he wrote. Although he sailed on Mar. 7 he foresaw the need to return after a short stay in France.

I expect to leave Websterco in such a condition that I shall have to return after a pretty short interval. However, we shall see. If Shoemaker could have gone to work earlier it would have helped to show me what I had best do.

There are two things sure. 1. That there is better electrical treatment [for Livy] to be had in New York than in any city in Europe.

2. That Dr Farrar is worth six of any dentist in Paris. And I’ve been assured that one does not need to go out of New York now for his singing & piano masters. Europe is a good deal of a humbug, I guess [MTP]. Note: Dr. John Nutting Farrar.

Sam added he’d been “so driven Saturday, Sunday, yesterday & today” (Feb. 17 to Feb 20) that he’d had no chance to write her. The Shelley article had been found, and he “finally yielded” to William Carey’s “urgings” (Ed. Century) and agreed to read with James Whitcomb Riley on Feb. 26 and 27 at $250 a night. Since this was announced in the N.Y. Times on Feb. 18, Sam must have agreed to this no later than the day before, or Feb. 17, as long as Riley would leave the humorous to him, “& restrict himself to the serious.”

And so, ever since I have been memorizing stuff for those readings — memorizing it along the street, going from one business appointment to another; memorizing it in horse-cars & the elevated; in momentary intervals at dinner parties & other social life; & in bed. I am all right, now — and ready.

Sam ended with astonishment of the day’s pressures:

The letters, the messages, the notes, the persecutions of one sort & another began while I was trying to take my coffee in bed, & I never got a rest from them till noon. It is 5 now, & still I am not dressed. But I have written the speech. I will copy it, now (after mailing this letter — which I will do immediately) & then try to get the rough draft into the same mail [MTP].

In the evening Sam talked over Webster & Co.’s problems with H.H. Rogers and Fred Hall until nearly 11 p.m., when Rogers had to take the train to his hometown of Fairhaven, Mass. to prepare for the town hall dedication on Feb. 22. After Rogers left, Sam worked on his remarks for the reading with James Whitcomb Riley on Feb. 26 and 27, then wrote and sent “three absolutely necessary business letters,” then memorized his speech for the dedication and retired at 3 a.m. [From Feb. 23 to Livy].