December 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Washington to John Russell Young again, asking if he might use the three letters he had sent in the book he was planning for Bliss. “I am sorry to trouble you so much, but behold the world is full of sorrows, & grief is the heritage of man” [MTL 2: 125]. In the letter Sam mentioned William Swinton (1833-1892), who in 1906 Sam remembered as forming a “Newspaper Correspondence Syndicate” with him, earning a dollar a letter from several newspapers [MTA 1: 323-4]. Sam called Swinton “a brilliant creature, highly educated, accomplished.” For more about Swinton, a roommate of Sam’s in Washington during the winter of 1867-8, see MTL 2: 125n1].

Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Twenty-eight” dated Sept. 12 ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 183-88].