January 8 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Washington to his mother, and sister Pamela. Sam told of his trip to New York, the “blowout” at Dan Slote’s house and the dinner he had at Henry Ward Beecher’s home. He also wrote that he found just found out the night before that he was to give two lectures on Jan. 9 and 10 (an inebriated “friend,” now unidentified, had made the lecture arrangements without telling Sam) [MTL 2: 144-5].

Sam also wrote a flirtatious letter to Emma Beach of his coming lecture about the Quaker City excursion; he would call it, “The Frozen Truth” [MTL 2: 147-9].Sam’s article “Home Again” dated Nov 20, 1867 ran in the San Francisco Alta California:

Home Again.

The steamer Quaker City arrived yesterday morning and turned her menagerie of pilgrims loose on America— but, thank Heaven, they came ashore in Christian costume. There was some reason to fear that they would astound the public with Moorish haiks, Turkish fezzes, sashes from Persia, and such other outlandish diablerie as their distempered fancies were apt to suggest to them to resurrect from their curious foreign trunks. They have struggled through the Custom House and escaped to their homes. Their Pilgrim’s Progress is ended, and they know more now than it is lawful for the Gods themselves to know. They can talk it from now till January—most of them are too old to last longer [McKeithan 309].