September 3 Friday – Sam wrote a postcard from Quarry Farm, Elmira to T.W.M. Boone of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, thanking him for an honorary membership in their “Young Folks’ Literary Guild” [MTLE 5: 153].

Howells was visiting the West Coast. Sam wrote to him about Frank Soulé, a former co-worker of Sam’s on the San Francisco Morning Call, who had written Sam seeking a publisher for his poetry. Sam liked Soulé, who he said had “that sort of face which is so rare—I mean a face that is always welcome, that makes you happy all through, just to see it.” Sam asked if Howells would request some work from the man and then recommend “Osgood or some publisher…” Sam likened Soulé’s conviction that he was a poet to “Emperor” Norton’s (Joshua A. Norton, ca.1819-1880) conviction that he was an emperor, descended from one of the “English Georges.” Sam saw pathos in both men. Sam also recalled the “degraded ‘Morning Call’ whose mission from hell & politics was to lick the boots of the Irish & throw bold brave mud at the Chinamen” [MTLE 5: 154-7].