November 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion, who evidently had caught a grammar error in one of Sam’s letters. “It is not my instinct to care whether I am or not in a private letter,” he answered [MTBus 177].

Sam gave a reading at the Monday Evening Club at Joe Twichell’s home in Hartford: “Phrenography” (reading bumps on the head) This was Sam’s sixth presentation to the Club since his election in 1873 [Monday Evening Club; Twichell’s journal, Yale].

Sam also wrote to Karl and Hattie Gerhardt complimenting Karl on the medallion he’d sent of Charles Dudley Warner. The George Warners had seen it and raved about the likeness, though Sam thought the bust Gerhardt had done of him was a better likeness. Sam told of another sculptor the Springfield Republican’s Hartford correspondent advertised, “the sexton of Mrs. Colt’s Memorial Church.”

“Jean is pulling through a fortnight’s spell of sickness, which disturbed us some nights & one or two days. She seems to be all right again, nearly; & is mighty spiteful—a good sign” [MTP]

Sam wrote to Edward House. Sam liked House’s review of P&P in the Atlantic “& never once detected a scar from Aldrich’s butcher-knife.” House had written he would not sail before the middle of January; Sam answered, “that makes the visit here next to absolutely certain” [MTP].

Charles Webster wrote that Slote had only transferred a third of the patent to Sam and the rest to Joyce & Goff. Also, “I will gladly engrave for Ticknor as that will show what we can do” [MTP].

** Tiffany & Co. wrote asking for $1,000 on work already finished [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the note, “Complied with, Nov. 22”; requests continued for a thousand or so at a time as work progressed.