December 18 Monday – Sam arrived in Chicago at 3 PM, some 11 hours for a 2-hour trip. He gave the “Roughing It.” lecture south of the area devastated by the Oct. 8 fire, in Michigan Avenue Baptist Church, Chicago.

Sam wrote from Chicago to Livy and spent the night at Robert Law’s home, a coal dealer and friend of the Langdons [MTL 4: 518n2].

“We sat up & talked till 10, & all went to bed. I worked till after midnight amending & altering my lecture, & then turned in & slept like a log—I don’t mean a brisk, fresh, green log, but an old dead, soggy, rotten one, that never turns over or gives a yelp” [MTL 4: 517].