October – Sometime during the month Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, confiding the secret address of 23 Tedworth Square for him to visit. Sam headed the note, “Private,” and explained:

We keep in hiding because we are four broken hearts, and I do not go out and my wife and daughters never see anybody — they cannot bear it yet; but I shall be glad, and more than glad to see you, at any day or hour or moment that you will look in on me; and the sooner you come the gladder I shall be. …Nobody but my publisher, Chatto, knows this address.

Sam expressed sorrow that Bigelow had been ill, and that he’d had “pen-rheumatism,” which he wrote they would fix with electricity treatments in Berlin, “and make sure work of it” [MTP].

Late in the month Sam referred in his notebook to a juggler’s ability to juggle despite not having done so for 30 years as,  So powerful is a habit once acquired. Quoted by Prof. Wm James in his ‘Principles of Psychology’ [Gribben 351; NB 39 TS 11].

Also, late in the month Sam noted that the charge for using the London Library was,  Just the rent of an unfurnished house suitable for a family of 4 persons & 5 servants in Henry IVs time, according to the Paston letters [Gribben 535; NB 39 TS 12]. Note: The Paston Letters, 1422-1509 A.D. A New Edition, Ed. By James Gairdner (1872-5).

Baender’s article, “The Date of Mark Twain’s ‘The Lowest Animal’” makes a solid case for Sam beginning the essay on Aug. 13 and finishing it sometime in October, 1896 [174-9].