January 17 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.
Our house has been a hospital for some months, and I a hermit. If any dinner could beguile me out, a dinner of yours would. But I am not meaning a club dinner; I have just been expelled from the Players for non-payment of dues, and am not joining anymore clubs now. You must come up and see me and tell me all about Guernsey, for I remember that you spent several weeks there once. We are not situated to invite any one to a meal, but if you should happen to arrive here along about five o’clock and smoke with me until half past seven, Clara would be obliged to feed us, and so long as she would not have been required to make any preparation, she would have no occasion to feel embarrassed.
Day before yesterday, Mrs. Clemens sat up half an hour, yesterday, Jean sat up more than an hour. Both patients are getting along most satisfactorily.
I offer my homage and kindest remembrances to your father and the household of No. 21 [MTP].
Frederick W. Peabody wrote to Sam. “I presume of course you have seen Mrs. Eddy’s ‘Reply to your “Criticisms,” a copy of which I inclose. … I defy you to produce any thing so funny as this ‘reply’” [MTP].
Sam’s notebook: continued listing literary figures he had known: Prentice Mulford (1834-1891), humorist; Robert Henry Newell (1836 -1901) pseud. “Orpheus C. Kerr” [Gribben 490, 501]. Others in the list: “Longfellow, Whittier, Whipple, Sarah Orne Jewett, Holmes, Lowell, Emerson, James T. Fields, C.H. Webb, Bret Harte” [NB 46 TS 7]. Note: listed down the page, not separated by commas.