December 16 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, again about the “Library of Humor” book.

No, don’t keep the check—collect the check & keep the money…you & I will probably be bald & toothless before the Library is published; for if I get the two books I am expecting to get, they will come in ahead & shove the Library along a couple of years; & by that time other books will intervene again & keep shoving it along.

December 15 Tuesday – Denis E. McCarthy died in Irvington, Alameda County, Calif. He was 55. The New York Times reported his death on Dec. 18, 1885, p.2. The article mentions his association with Sam, “then a young and comparatively unknown writer.” It also recounted the fake robbery on the “divide,” which may have caused a permanent breach with Sam. McCarthy died as editor and proprietor of the Virginia City Chronicle, which he ran from 1873. Too much demon rum killed him.

December 14 Monday – The Monday Evening Club met at the Clemens home with a discussion of “Eloquence.” Susy Clemens attended the meeting. “The essayist of the evening contended that the only form of eloquence was verbal.

December 13 Sunday – William M. Clemens for Chicago Literary Life Magazine wrote “sorry” Sam was 50 [MTP].

Prof. John Fiske wrote asking if he could “accept your kind invitation for the 23d instead of the 16th?” [MTP].

December 12 Saturday – The New York Critic printed an interview with Sam’s mother, Jane Clemens: Sam as a boy avoided school, though he enjoyed reading [Tenney 14].

December 11 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:

“Howells says [from his Dec. 11 letter to Sam]: I’m reading Grant’s book with a delight I’ve failed to find in novels.” And again: “I think he is one of the most natural—that is, best—writers I ever read. The book merits its enormous success, simply as literature” [MTNJ 3: 217].

December 10 Thursday – Karl Gerhardt wrote more about the death mask matter, Grant to Gerhardt Dec. 7 enclosed [MTP].

December 9 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Walter E. Dacrow, who evidently had asked for a small article. Sam’s answer deserves space here:

If anything in the world could tempt me, this letter of yours could certainly do it. But I give myself only five years longer to live, and in that time I must furnish certain books for the betterment of the human race; if I should stop to peddle miscellaneous articles, it would leave the human race insecure [MTP].

December 8 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Orion, sending $25 and a Christmas greeting, saying the money represented,

“…what they would buy & send you if they warn’t so dam busy” [MTP].

Sam also wrote, or allowed to be written in his behalf, from Hartford to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, declining an invitation to some event [MTP].

December 7 Monday – Back in Hartford, probably over the weekend, Sam wrote to Howells about the “Library of Humor” book. Sam suggested Howells write the preface now, and then:

“…we can put the Library away, with cheerful souls, knowing that at any time now or far away, there’s nothing in the way of her coming out whenever we want her to.”