December 10 Sunday – Sam returned to New York and wrote from the Players Club to the Secretary of the Millicent Library in Fairhaven, Mass. This was Henry H. Rogers’ boyhood town to which he later gave many gifts, including the Fairhaven High School, the Town Hall, a Masonic Hall, Cushman Park, and Millicent Library, named for his deceased daughter who had a love of books. At age 20 Rogers left the town to seek his fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. MTHHR notes that this letter “does provide early evidence of his appreciation for Rogers’s generosity in involving himself in Clemens’s tangled business affairs” [27].

I have allowed myself the privilege of sending two or three of my books to the Library. They are not instructive, but I feel sure you will like the bindings [MTP]. Note: In the next few months Sam sent the library inscribed copies of HF and P&P [MTHHR 27n1].

The New York Times, p.21 “Memories of the Revolution” announced a list of dignitaries, including Samuel L. Clemens, “Mark Twain” who would be at the Dec. 16 annual banquet by the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, with a preceding reception for Prof. John Fiske at the Hotel New Netherland. Sam would be ill and unable to attend. He noted in his Dec. 4 to Livy his admiration for Fiske.

Livy wrote to Sam. He received the letter (not extant) on Dec. 25 with three others from her (Dec. 9, 11, 12), after his return from Chicago [Dec.25 to Livy]. Note: She also wrote to her sister, referred to in Crane’s Dec. 25.