December 12 Saturday – Sam wrote from Norwich, New York to tease Mary Mason Fairbanks.

It is noon, & snowing. I am here, the guest of Judge Mason—& happy. Mrs. Mason is so good, & so kind, so thoughtful, so untiring in her genuine hospitality, & lets me be just as troublesome as I want to, that I just love her, & it seems as if she were you—or your double. She lets me smoke in the house, & bring in snow on my boots, & sleep late, & eat at unseasonable hours, & leaves my valise wide open on the floor & my soiled linen scattered about it just exactly as I leave it & as it ought to be to make life truly happy [MTL 2: 326].

Sam stayed the weekend with the Masons. Sam also wrote Livy: “It is splendid! gorgeous! unspeakably magnificent! I am to see you, you, YOU on the 17th!” [MTL 2: 327-31].

Sam also wrote Joseph Twichell, describing Livy’s rational letters as the “darlingest funniest love letters that were ever written” [MTL 2: 332].

Sam’s article “Concerning Gen. Grant’s Intentions,” dated Dec. 7, 1868 ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.; The Twainian, Nov-Dec. 1946 p1-2]. Note: this was reprinted Dec. 19 in the Hartford Courant.