October 18 Wednesday – Sam lectured (“Uncommonplace Characters”) in Music Hall, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  Sam enlisted the help of “an old Californian friend” (unidentified) to cancel lectures in Easton, Penn., and Reading, Penn. for Oct. 19 and 20. The Easton Free Press had called the lectures in Bethlehem and Allentown a “failure,” so Sam was:

“…mourning over my miserable lecture…. I shall reach Washington tomorrow night, & then for two days & nights I shall work like a beaver on my new lecture. How I ever came to get up such a mess of rubbish as this & imagine it good, is too many for me” [MTL 4: 475-6].