February 2 Sunday – Sam wrote from the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York to Livy on their third wedding anniversary.

I am keeping the great anniversary in the solitude of the hotel; & not boisterously, for last night’s whirlwind of excitement has swept all the spirit out of me & I am as dull & lifeless as if I had just waked out of a long, stupefying sleep.

I find that the Tribune review of Roughing It was written by the profound old stick who has done all the Tribune reviews for the last 90 years [George Ripley (1802-1880), instead of Sam’s request for John Hay]. The idea of setting such an oyster as that to prating about Humor! This is “journalism.” They would think me absurd if I were to suggest that they hire Josh Billings to write a critique on the Illiad, but it does not occur to them that he is as thoroughly competent to do it as this old Tribune fool to criticise a book of humor.… It would be just as consistent to hire a clerk to keep their books, write their editorials, cook their food & do their washing. No man has an appreciation so various that his judgment is good upon all varieties of literary work. If they were to set me to review Mrs. Browning, it would be like asking you to deliver judgment upon the merits of a box of cigars…[MTL 5: 293].

Sam and Livy had a running joke about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry, which Livy enjoyed and Sam called “marvelous ravings” [MTL 5: 294n5].

Two-tenths of an inch of snow fell in New York City [NOAA.gov].