April 2 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela Moffett, now in San Francisco, awaiting the wedding of her son, Samuel Moffett on Apr. 13 to Mary Emily Mantz. Clemens informed her about the letter from “Mrs. Boardman, was Jenny Stevens, daughter of the old jeweler of Hannibal, & sister of Ed, John & Dick.” He’d answered Jenny’s first letter but didn’t care to answer her second, as he couldn’t “afford a correspondence…”

The family are all in the doctor’s hands but me, but nobody seriously ill. When I say the family I include the servants & the horses [MTP].

Sam also wrote to a young correspondent, who in 1910 would become editor of the Grants Pass, Oregon Observer. Most interesting is Sam’s view of plagiarism and the frequent charges of it.

Dear Sir: / It didn’t come, and like as not I shouldn’t ever get time to look at it, anyway; but let me correct you in one thing — I mean soothe you with one fact: a considerable part of every book is an unconscious plagiarism of some previous book. There is no sin about it. If there were, and it were of the deadly sort, it would eventually be necessary to restrict hell to authors — and then to enlarge it. / Truly yours [MTP].

Abbie L. Ely, a teacher in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. wrote praising “English As She Is Taught,” and asking him, “tell me truly, didn’t you compose some of those mistakes yourself?” She pointed out some aspects she felt had to come from an “adult mind” [MTP].