February 8 Thursday – Sam wrote “How to Tell a Story” for Youth’s Companion (which was not published in that magazine until Oct. 3, 1895). At 6 p.m. he went to Richard Harding Davis’ 5 o’clock tea. Davis and “young” Howard Russell shared 5th Avenue bachelor quarters.
Mrs. Stanford White was there to receive & matronize young ladies. A splendid grand creature to look at! Of course I had forgotten her — I should forget Satan — but she immediately told me her name. The daily thing happened — I was greeted by fifty people who knew me, & who hardly ever mentioned their names. I could have killed them!
I had a very pleasant time, nevertheless. Among others, Barnes (that adorable mimic) was there, & I seized the chance to get better acquainted. A mighty nice man. I like Harding Davis, too. …
At 7 I went von dannen to dinner in 1 E 19th street, at Mr. Olin’s. Present, Olin, Millet, Dwight, & another gentleman; Mrs. (wife of that other & cousin to the host) Mrs. Millet, Miss Frelinghuysen, Miss Minturn. (Four times during the evening Millet told me the name of the couple who were related to the host, but I was never able to keep it 5 minutes. I took out Miss Frelinghuysen (whom I knew in Washington when her father was Secretary of State) & say betune her & Mrs. Millet. Miss F. is sterling in character and high & fine in breeding, & she has read everything & knows how to discriminate between best & second-best.
Sam related a slight difference of opinion he had with Mrs. Francis Millet (Elizabeth Merrill Millet) about Thomas Bailey Aldrich (not present) but praised her as “dignified and reposeful, her feverish eagerness to jabber & jabber & jabber was gone” [LLMT 293-6: Feb. 9 to Livy]. Note: in his Feb 11-13 to Livy, Sam disclosed he told the history of “Capt. Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” at this gathering: “It nearly killed Miss Frelinghuysen the other night, & those other people.”
Orion and Mollie Clemens began a letter to Sam they finished on Feb. 10; Orion thanked him for the $50 check received the day before; he told of meeting with editor Sam Clark of the Keokuck Gate City, and that Clark said of Sam, “He belongs to the whole world.” Orion wrote he’d heard Robert G. Ingersoll on the previous night — a full house at $1 a seat; the audience laughed and clapped with some hisses to Ingersoll’s “religious notions.” [MTP].