January 16 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John L. Toole, English comedian he met in London in 1872. Through Sam, Toole was welcomed at the Lotos Club dinner on Aug. 6, 1874. Now Toole was appearing at the Roberts Opera House in Hartford. Sam regretted being unable to attend and invited Toole to dine with the family at 5 PM the next evening.

“Dress to suit yourself. You have discovered by this time that we are a loose nation in that matter” [MTL 6: 352].

Sam also wrote a short note to William D. Whitney (1827-1894), an American linguist, philologist and lexicographer, inquiring as to the character of “Mr. Webster” (Charles Luther Webster 1851-1891) who had been “paying serious attention to a young niece of mine, Miss Annie Moffett of Fredonia.” Sam referred to “gossip” about Webster, probably stemming from the fact that he accidentally killed a four-year-old girl when he was nine. Whitney was a professor at Yale, and a relative of Webster through his mother, Maria Whitney Webster (1823-1906) [353].