March 14, 1880 Sunday

March 14 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to an unidentified person about responses to distressed nation appeals.

“…it is only when she [a nation] asks for bread, that creed & party are forgotten & the whole world rises to respond” [MTLE 5: 43].

March 10, 1880 Wednesday

March 10 Wednesday – Sam and Livy went to the theater to see William Dean Howells’ play, Yorick’s Love, by a leading Spanish author, Estebanez, with Lawrence Barrett. Sam loved it and wrote: “The language beautiful, the passion so fine, the plot so ingenious, the whole thing so stirring, so charming, so pathetic.” It was “the language of the Prince & the Pauper,” he wrote Howells on Mar.

March 9, 1880 Tuesday 

March 9 Tuesday – C.E. Goodspeed wrote from Newton Centre, Mass. to ask for an autograph [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Auto fiend / 1880 / Cheek”

Sam wrote to W.A. May in Scranton Pa. Letter not extant but referred to in May’s Mar. 11 reply.

March 6, 1880 Saturday 

March 6 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles H. Clark (John Quill or Max Adeler) of the Hartford Courant, denying he hadn’t ever killed any Indians, nor had Dan De Quille. Such a rumor had been “gotten up by the Indians” he wrote.

“Years ago, I was accused of loading an Indian up with beans lubricated with nitro-glycerin & sending him in an ox wagon over a stumpy road. This was impossible, on its face, for no one would risk oxen in that way” [MTLE 5: 34].

March 5, 1880 Friday

March 5 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion agreeing to look at Orion’s manuscript. He answered questions about Kaolatype patent, rights, etc. He ended the short letter by saying he’d:

“…added 114 pages to Prince & Pauper. I thought that might almost complete it, but it doesn’t bring it to the middle, I judge” [MTLE 5: 32].

Sam also wrote to Howells in Belmont, Mass.

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