April 16 Sunday – Sam returned to Hartford, where he wrote Howells.

O dear! I came home jubilant, thinking that for once I had gone through a two-day trip & come out without a crime on my soul: but it was all a delusion, nothing but a delusion—as I soon found out as I glided along in my narrative of how Aldrich—but no, I have suffered enough already, though Mrs. Clemens’s measureless scorn & almost measureless vituperation.

Sam had committed some trivial affront for which he profusely apologized. Livy added a note that he only represented her as “abusing him so terribly” but that most of his suffering was due to a guilty conscience [MTHL 1: 400-2].