November 4 Saturday – In Hartford Sam typed a note to Howells, who wrote Oct. 17 from Vaud, Switzerland. Howells tried to convince Sam to “pack up your family and come to Florence for the winter.” Sam responded:

Yes, it would be profitable for me to do that, because with your society to help me, I should swiftly finish this now interminable book. But I cannot come, because I am not boss here, and nothing but dynamite can move Mrs. Clemens away from home in the winter season.

I never had such a fight over a book in my life before. And the foolishest part of the whole business is, that I started Osgood to editing it before I had finished writing it. As a consequence, large areas of it are condemned here and there and yonder, and I have the burden of these unfilled gaps harassing me and the thought of the broken continuity of the work, while I am at the same time trying to build the last quarter of the book. [Typed by Phelps.] Note: Sam added more about Orion and the visit of George W. Cable [MTHL 1: 418-20].

Sam spoke at the Papyrus Club in Boston, Mass. [Hartford Courant, Nov. 6, 1882 p.2, “City Briefs”].