December 16 Wednesday – John M. Hay wrote after reading the first installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi” in the Atlantic.

Dear Clemens, / I have just read with delight your article in the Atlantic. It is perfect—no more nor less. I don’t see how you do it. I knew all that, every word of it—passed as much time on the levee as you ever did, knew the same crowd and saw the same scenes—but I could not have remembered one word of it. You have the two greatest gifts of the writer, memory and imagination. I congratulate you.

Yours sincerely

Hay [MTP].

F.E. Mead  wrote from NYC to ask if he’d send her one of the “Satin Programmes” from the 100th performance of GA (on Dec. 23) [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “This one beggeth a Satin Programme”; see program MTL 6: 684-87.

December 16? Wednesday – Sam returned to Hartford. He wrote to Simon Gratz, member of the Philadelphia board of education, declining (it is thought) to participate in the Jan. 28 commencement at the Philadelphia Academy of Music [MTL 6: 321].