July 13 Friday – Probably in Elmira or on the train headed back to Elmira, Sam began a letter to William Kennedy he did not finish until Oct. 31. He may have misplaced it in the meantime, as this was not usual for him to do. The letter is enlightening as to Sam’s thoughts about humor and American humor in particular.

I have a superstition that humor is as much a part of a human being as it is of God himself, who made it, enjoys it, and has exhibited his fondness for it by casting examples and exponents of it in incredible number and infinite variety of form — form whose fantastic animal and vegetable designs relieve with ever-recurring levities the vast gravity of nature, and in whose long procession you find things to charm and content all tastes; the artillery bug and the squid, the insectivorous plant and the jackass, the kitten and the polecat; and along down at the end, among the “citizens in carriages and on foot,” you observe Burdette and the monkey and me.

Sam continued to discuss differences in national humors and why American humor is different —

The more sunshine and the easier the life, the greater the measure of humor will rise to the top.

The thing called American humor is misnamed; it has no patent, it is not peculiar, it is mere human humor, with the pressure lifted off, its chains broken, its spirit set free. Only once, in the world’s history, have we seen a nation enjoying these several things all at the same time: a bright sky, a general freedom from the depressing bread-and-meat cares of life, and every man entitled to hold his head as high as his neighbor’s. The result is the only example in history of human humor not in a state of arrested development [MTP].

Sam 14 and Theo Crane 13 in another contest, probably cribbage or cards (see July 5) [MTNJ 3: 475].

Charles Ethan Davis wrote of progress on the typesetter (enclosed in Whitmore July 13) [MTP].

Franklin G. Whitmore (Davis ca. July 13 enclosed) wrote that he’d asked Charles Davis to discuss the progress of the typesetter [MTP].