December 19 Saturday – Fort Plain, New York: Sam arrived here in the afternoon and gave his “Vandals” lecture in the evening.

December 19 and 20 Sunday – Sam was the guest of his poet-friend, George W. Elliott (1830-1898) and wife in Fort Plain, New York. Sam wrote to Livy.

“Here at dead of night I seem to hear the murmur of the far Pacific—& mingled with the music of the surf the melody of an old familiar hymn is sounding in my ear.”

Sam related the pause and sorrow he’d felt reading of the death of 35-year-old Rev. Franklin S. Rising, whom Sam knew in Virginia City and returning from Hawaii on the Smyrniote [MTL 2: 333-9]. Rising died Dec. 4, 1868 in a collision of the steamers America and United States on the Ohio River [MTL 1: 354n3].

You know the hymn—it is “Oh refresh us.” It haunts me now because I am thinking of a steadfast friend whose death I have learned through the papers—a friend whose face must always appear before me when I think of that hymn—the Rev. Franklin S. Rising…He was rector of the Episcopal church in Virginia City, Nevada—a noble young fellow—& for 3 years, there, he & I were fast friends….Afterward I stumbled on him in the Sandwich Islands, where he was traveling for his health, & we so arranged it as to return to San Francisco in the same ship. We were at sea five Sundays….A month ago, after so long a separation, he saw by the Tribune that I was at the Everett House, & came at once & left his card—I was out & did not see him. It was the last opportunity I was ever to have on earth. For his wanderings are done, now; his restless feet are still; he is at peace. Now the glories of heaven are about him, & in his ears its mysterious music is sounding—but to me comes no vision but a lonely ship in a great solitude of sky & water; & unto my ears comes no sound but the complaining of the waves & the softened cadences of that simple old hymn—but Oh, Livy, it comes freighted with infinite pathos! [MTL 2: 333-4]. Note: And, of course, for the zillionth time, Sam told Livy that he loved her.