October 15 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, whose Oct. 14 letter carried good news about his play starring Lawrence Barrett, a matinee idol. Sam had seen the reviews in the papers and answered:

I’ve got some good news too—(but keep it to yourself for the present)—“Ah Sin” is a most abject & incurable failure! It will leave the stage permanently, within a week, & then I shall be a cheerful being again. I’m sorry for poor Parsloe, but for nobody else concerned [MTLE 2:175].

Evidently, after thinking about the feedback Maze Edwards had sent, Sam neither wished to invest more or do a rewrite of the play, and had decided by the time he wrote Howells, to abandon the effort. Howells was soon to visit and Sam also wanted him to read his “Undertaker’s Tale,” and tell him “what is the trouble with it.”