June 12 Sunday – Sam & Livy wrote from Buffalo to Pamela A. Moffett, now living in Fredonia, NY.

We were snatched away suddenly by an urgent call to come to Elmira & help nurse Mr Langdon for a couple of weeks at some Pennsylvania springs he was going to visit. But he decided not to go, & so we simply rested a moment & then hurried back here.

I am exceedingly glad to hear that Orion’s machine is so favorably thought of by Munn & Co. An inventor is a poet—a true poet—and nothing in any degree less than a high order of poet…We would all rejoice to see Orion achieve a moneyed success with his inventions, of course—but if he can eventually do something great, something imperial, it were better to do that & starve than not to do it at all.

Note: Sam’s relationship with Orion was consistently conflicted. Orion’s inventions had not been patented, and he discovered later that someone else had patented a similar woodcutting machine [MTL 4: 151-3].