March 18 Monday – Sam was in St. Louis with his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister, Pamela. He wrote Orion on this date about visiting a museum and seeing Frederic E. Church’s oil painting, Heart of the Andes. He also wrote of his mother’s disapproval of a dance, the Schottische (like the Polka) that he, his sister, and Miss Castle took part of [MTL 1: 116]. Note: The source for this letter in the printed volume was Paine’s text; Here are transcribed parts of the letter that have surfaced since, from MTP’s “drop-in” letter file, as follows:

You have paid the preacher! Well, that is good, also. What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.

Pamela and I have just returned from a visit to the most wonderfully beautiful painting….When you first see the tame, ordinary-looking picture, your first impulse is to turn your back upon it, and say Humbug—but your third visit will find your brain gasping and straining with futile efforts to take all the wonder in…
…
Ma was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls for allowing me to embrace and kiss them—and she was horrified at the Schottische as performed by Miss Castle andmyself….But then she is an old fogy, you know.

I took Ma and the girls in a carriage, round that portion of New Orleans where the finest gardens and residences are to be seen, and although it was a blazing hot, dusty day, they seemed highly delighted. To use an expression which is commonly ignored in polite society, they were “hell-bent” on stealing some of the luscious-looking oranges from branches which overhung the fences, but I restrained them….We went out to Lake Pontchartrain in the cars [MTP, drop-in letters]. Note: Paine made several changes to this letter, notably cutting out Sam calling his mother “an old fogy.”