October 8 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam. He liked the idea of the “blind novelettes,” (see Oct. 12 entry) and his owners were “crazy over it,” though he saw difficulties in persuading people to write them. He confessed the failure of the bio he’d done on Hayes, and “bills continue to come in with unabated fierceness.” He also praised Sam’s Sept. 30 speech, which he felt was “civil service reform in a nutshell” [MTHL 1: 155-6].