November 1 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. Sam also felt Howells’ visit was too short, and hoped when he returned in December it would be a longer stay. Sam enclosed a piece that Joe Twichell got from a “Cleveland clergyman, who said it was very recent” for Howells consideration. Evidently Sam had marked a place to insert the piece in the proof of one of his current Atlantic articles on his Bermuda trip, and asked if Howells printed the insertion to “send a proof to Canada & forward one to me for London” [MTLE 2:188].

Sam ended with a reference to “Mrs. Gilman” having “fitful glimmerings of reason, in which she straightway plunges into schemes for paying the swindled creditors, & is soon a frantic maniac again.” This reference is to an unidentified Mrs. Gilman (possibly Mrs. George Shepard Gilman), not Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), Hartford-born grandniece of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who did not become a Gilman until 1900. See AMT 2: 488-9 for more on Mr. George Shepard Gilman.

Mollie Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy. The weather was “simply horrible.” They missed “Ma more than I had any idea we would; she was here three & a half months. She made a great many friends and was admired by all and told to her face she was beautiful” [MTP].

Moncure Conway wrote to Sam having just rec’d his first copy of TS from Chatto & Windus. “They are just bringing out the cheap edition on which it is hoped the money is to be made. / Your speech to the Boston soldiers was about as good as it could be, except that it nearly broke one of my blood-vessels….You must—you really must—come over next Spring” [MTP].

Charles E. Perkins wrote to Sam of credits to his acct at Bissell’s bank and a request for $46.45 for Maze Edwards [MTP].