November 10 Sunday – At midnight on Nov. 9, after the Lord Mayor’s Dinner, Sam wrote Livy:

Livy darling, it was flattering, at the Lord Mayor’s dinner, tonight, to have the nation’s honored favorite, the Lord High Chancellor of England, in his vast wig & gown, with a splendid, sword-bearing lackey, following him & holding up his train, walk me arm-in-arm through the brilliant assemblage, & welcome me with all the enthusiasm of a girl, & tell me that when affairs of state oppress him & he can’t sleep, he always has my books at hand & forgets his perplexities in reading them! And two other be-wigged & gowned great state judges of England told me the very same thing [MTL 5: 221].

Note: Sam soaked up the mantle of respectability bestowed by the pomp and pageantry. His mother always enjoyed a great show, whether a parade or a funeral, and Sam was much like her. He was discovering that his old calling “of a low sort” was not low at all.