October 13 Thursday – At the Grosvenor Hotel in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Charles J. Langdon.

Dear Charley— / Will you attend to this? It is Livy’s Texas land. I think you took the papers & kindly offered to look after it for her.

I dined with Julie & Edward last night, & had a delightful time. Julie profoundly touched me (even to moisture in the eyes) with her charming tale of “Mark Twains Rule.”

I send my love to you all, & welcome-home to the Idas.

I am at the Grosvenor again, which is very handy to our house & enables me to superintend the outside of it [MTP]. Note: See Archer County, Texas Land entries, Vol. I.

Sam’s notebook: “Executed my Last Will. / [Horiz. Line separator] / Now I’ve got a word for it when ‘purring’ is a shade too strong to properly describe that almost undetectable soft rumpling sound which you feel, rather than hear, when you press a kitten to your ear. I pressed the kitten to Clara’s ear & said, ‘There— now you can feel him smouldering’” [NB 47 TS 17].

Francis T. Miller wrote for The Connecticut Magazine asking Sam for a few lines for their Dec. issue. On or just after this date Sam directed his assistant to answer, writing on the bottom of Miller’s letter:

“Miss Lyon, please tell him that by my contract I can write nothing for print, except in the Harper publications” [MTP].

Elizabeth S. Ward wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, who then passed on the letter to Mark Twain for his response. Ward requested “a few lines, not expressed exactly as Dr. Leffingwell has expressed it,” on the subject of vivisection abolition. Sam directed his assistant to answer,writing on the top of Ward’s letter: “Miss Lyon, please decline. Courteously, if possible” [MTP]. Note: Dr. Albert Leffingwell (1845-1916) social reformer and leading advocate against vivisection of animals.