September 21 Thursday – Sam telegraphed from Elmira to Charles Webster that he’d received his letter, the result was “convincing” and to “Do with that stuff as your Judgement directs” [MTP].
September 20 Wednesday – Sam often wrote notes about what he called “mental telegraphy,” thinking about a person from years ago right before their letter arrived, or as in Twichell’s case in Germany, turning a corner and meeting a man from years before he’d just been talking about. Sam’s notebook:
“Livy says ‘I have no memory.’ My own thought but about myself last night” [MTNJ 2: 505].
September 19 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, upset about material bearing his name published by J.S. Ogilvie & Co. that he had not written.
“Dear Charley—I want Messrs. Alexander & Green to go for these people at once & lively, on some charge or other. They are using my name to sell stuff which I never wrote. I would not be the author of that witless stuff (Bad Boy’s Diary) for a million dollars” [MTBus 197].
September 18 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, upon his return from a European vacation. Sam was struggling with the Mississippi book.
Welcome home! I have been half dead with malaria ever since you left; and these last few days am two-thirds dead. I work all the time, but accomplish very little—sometimes as little as 200 words in 5 hours.
September 17 Sunday – Sam also wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about a watch chain ordered from Tiffany & Co. that had not arrived in Elmira. Sam enclosed the letter from a Tiffany employee and wrote that he “got the watch chain at last, some 13 hours quicker than I could have got it by the canal” [MTP].
September 16 Saturday – James R. Osgood wrote to Sam: “Your letter of yesterday is received, with the accompanying MS. chapters of the book and the package of ‘Every Saturday’.” / We send you by Adams Ex. a package from Mr. Clarke, containing bill of complaint (in duplicate) in the Belford, Clark & Co. case …” [MTP]. Note: Thomas W. Clarke, attorney.
September 15 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, mailing him another chapter of LM.
“Book nearly done, now. Is mainly in the hands of the copyist. Will send you the seven (reprint) chapters, revised and corrected presently—the ones first illustrated by the artist…so you can hurry up your canvassing specimen” [MTP].
September 14 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to answer the Sept. 11 request from David L. Grasmere, asking for a note from Sam.
September 13 Wednesday – Pamela Moffett wrote from Quincy, Ill. To thank him for his “kind and generous forethought”—they’d had a “very comfortable journey.” She’d just received a draft for $1,900 from the sale of the Independent Watch Co. stock. “I feel very grateful to every body who had a share in getting me out of this scrape,” especially Sam and also Charles Webster [MTP].
September 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira, responding to an Aug. 26 letter from George MacDonald, Scottish minister, novelist and poet whom Sam met in 1873 in London. George recommended his literary agent, A.P. Watt. Sam answered that he didn’t need an agent as he was going to publish his own works. He promised to send a copy of LM when issued [Lindskoog 28].