September 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Liverpool, England to Livy.

Livy darling, I wonder if you are back home yet; & I wonder how the Muggins is [pet name for Susy]. & what she looks like. I seem only a stone’s-throw from you & cannot persuade myself that this is a foreign land & that an ocean rolls between us. I feel very near to you.

      I have just finished a long & laborious conning of newspapers & pasting extracts & jotting down trivialities in my journal, & now comes my bete noir—for I must shave [MTL 5: 152-3]. Note: Sam had been planning a book about England and English customs, along the lines of Innocents Abroad. Thus, the notebook.