January – Sometime during the month Sam wrote to Will Clemens (no relation, see Nov. 18, 1879 entry) who had asked for a humorous biography of Sam.

“I haven’t any humorous biography—the facts don’t admit of it. I had this sketch from Men of the Time printed on slips to enable me to study my history at my leisure” [Clemens, W. 20].

Will did write a 200-page biography of Sam and published it on July 1, 1892 as “No. 1” in a paperback series called “The Pacific Library.”

Sam also wrote to Whitelaw Reid sometime during January:

Your note of yesterday is received. Reassure yourself: I have told you, many times, these many years, that I am always ready & glad to help you, in these matters, just as far as I am able. A friendship that can say less, is not a friendship to be valued. I think your feeling for me has always led you to estimate my opinions, suggestions & advice quite above their real worth; but no matter: whether the estimate has been born of the heart or of the head, it pleases me, & pleases me more deeply than I can say—let that suffice [MTP].

Sam pointed out the indelicacy of Reid’s “secret instructions to President Garfield” and to remarks Reid must have said or printed to a:

“Chief Magistrate of the United States to his face…Did you blush? You should have blushed. It is the language of a man as tall as the Tribune tower; it is not proper to a person of lesser altitude” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook shows a list headed by John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864). Gribben suggests Sam intended to use Newman’s work as a model for his planned scathing biography of Whitelaw Reid [501].