December 2 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Cordelia Welsh Foote from Cincinnati:

 Well, people & things do swap places in most unexpected ways in this world. Twenty years ago I was a platform-humorist & you a singer of plaintive Scotch ballads that were full of heart-break & tears. And now we have changed places. You are platform-humorist (among other things), & I am reader to a Browning class! I can’t imagine a completer reversal of roles than this…I wouldn’t trade back for any money.

Sam said he’d been Browning-reader for “forty-two weeks,” but actually it was a bit longer (he wrote Fairbanks on Nov. 16, 1886 that he’d been reader for two weeks, but he may have been talking about actual meetings). Sam also wrote that poetry “never gets obscure till I begin to explain it,” and “Moral: don’t explain your author; read him right & he explains himself” [MTP].

Edward M. Bunce sent a notice and check for $1,896.92 (18.8% of amount owed) in the matter of claims against the Hartford Engineering Co., for which Bunce was the court appointed receiver [MTP].

A.S. Diven wrote from Elmira about Sam’s letter to the Queen, enclosing a letter he thought funny. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Refer this to Charley. No wit in it” [MTP].

....

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

3915  Mr. P.D. Ryan  41.50

3916  James G.Welles & Co  2.21

3917  Mr. C. J. Cleary, Agent  140.09

3918  Hartford Gas & Light Co  71.81

3919  Western Union Telegraph Co  3.32

3920  Patrick McAleer  300.00

3921  Worthington Co  35.00