January 25 Wednesday – Livy and Sam (mostly Livy) wrote to Alice Hooker Day from a Buffalo hospital where Livy took Langdon for a wet nurse. Sam added an apology for an “absurdly curt dispatch” he had sent, probably canceling Isabella Beecher Hooker’s visit [MTL 4: 313-4]. Haughty Isabella was not one of Sam’s favorites.

Orion Wrote to his brother: “Your letter came while Bliss as in New York, and I waited for his return before replying.” Orion related that Bliss and Sheldon “seem to have made it up”. Bliss felt the pamphlet Sheldon was making, A Burlesque Autobiography, would constitute a “book” violating his contract with Twain. Bliss enjoyed being Sam’s sole publisher. Many other items discussed, including the Tennessee Land.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Boston. “It is too late for you to attempt to prevent me doing you justice! About 42000 copies of your note, with my apology nobly appended, are now printed, and we hope to have the rest of the edition off the press by to-morrow night. In the next No. of E.S? I will withdraw my apology, if you say so! / Yours…” [MTP].