October 16 Monday – At 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate) in London, Sam wrote, a short note of introduction for Mark Hambourg to Richard Watson Gilder. Hambourg was an accomplished Russian pianist and student of Leschetizky in Vienna [MTP].

Sam also wrote a similar note of introduction to Georgiana R. Laffan (Mrs. William Mackay Laffan).

This is to introduce to your kind favor & consideration Mr. Mark Hambourg, a friend of the Clemens family, whom we have known familiarly between three & four years. He has more musical ability than I have, but not as good a complexion. / With the love of the tribe, / Sincerely Yours / S.L. Clemens [MTP: Facsimile of letter in From Piano to Forte, by Mark Hambourg (1931) p. 101].

Sam also wrote to Percy Spalding, thanking him for finding two copies of an unspecified book waiting upon his return, and two of “the admirable paper on Major Noah.” Sam thought the book was “a search-light which reveals fine & unsuspecting things,” and hoped to use the facts in it someday. Sam wrote that he had known “Major Noah’s oldest son very well in San Francisco thirty-four years ago” [MTP].

Note: Mordecai M. Noah (1785-1851), noted American journalist, playwright, diplomat, New York politician, and Jewish advocate, who, in 1825 planned a utopia in Western New York for the world’s “Israelites,” which would include American Indians. His oldest son was M.M. “Manny” Noah, a San Francisco journalist and playwright [Branch, Clemens of the Call 27]. Just what Sam’s current interest in the elder Noah was is not clear.

Basil Wilberforce wrote to Sam, asking for “a great kindness”—“Will you give us a ‘talk’ upon Joan of Arc in our drawing-room upon any day that may be convenient to yourself in the course of the next fortnight…” He thought he could “collect an audience worthy of” Clemens [MTP].