December 28 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “Write Wm. E. Dodge—or call at his house if I should go to town” [NB 44 TS 19]. Note: William E. Dodge, Jr. was a Riverdale neighbor.

Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Sam:

Praise from Sir Hubert, my dear Doctor! (Loomis Nelson tells me you resent, since our Yale experience, the failure to give you your proper title). [Doctor]

Seriously, I thank you heartily; and I am touched and pleased by the welcome words of your Christmas greeting. / Always yours…. [MTP].

Note: “Approbation from Sir Hubert Spencer is praise indeed” is from A Care for the Heartache (1797) by Thomas Morton (1764-1838) [Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 2002].