September 15 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George Bentley, publisher of the London Temple Bar. Sam sent Bentley the first of four articles he’d written for Howells and the Atlantic on his Bermuda trip, and now sent the second. Sam conveyed Andrew Chatto’s desire for the advance sheets of the articles if Bentley did not want them. Sam did not hear back from Bentley on the matter and had told Chatto to contact Bentley [MTLE 2: 152]. He wished to “simultane” publish the articles in England and the U.S. in order to subvert pirate publishers in either country and Canada.

On or about this day Sam wrote a short note to his mother and enclosed $100 [MTLE 2: 153]. It is interesting to compare Sam’s letters to his mother with those to close friends and family members. Since he’d been a young man away from home in the 1850s and 60s, Sam’s letters to Jane were mostly short, abrupt even, if cordial, and did not openly display affection that is seen in many of his other letters. This may be due to the sometimes-scolding nature of his mother’s letters, and Sam’s feelings of begrudging duty to Orion. He signed this letter “Affly Sam.” To be fair, most of Sam’s letters to his mother were destroyed by his request.