January 29 Sunday – In the evening, Sam dined with William James. James wrote the next day (Jan. 30) to Francis Boott:

Mark Twain dined with us last night, in company with the good Villari and the charming Mrs. Villari; but there was no chance then to ask him to sing Nora McCarty. He’s a dear man, and there’ll be a chance yet. He is in a delightful villa at Settignano, and says he has written more in the past four months than he could have done in two years at Hartford [Letters of William James, 342]. Note: The Villari’s are not mentioned in any of Sam’s extant letters, but may be Pasquale (1827-1917) and Linda White Villari (1836-1915), who acted as her husband’s translator for his studies of Girolamo Savonarola and Niccolo Machiavelli. She was also an author, having Here and there in Italy and over the Border published this year. Pasquale was appointed professor of history at Pisa.

Nora McCarty, a humorous Irish song, words by F.A. Fahy, 1865. Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote a poem by this title as well.