February 3 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to P.T. Barnum, who Sam probably met in Feb. 1872. Barnum had asked Sam to “puff” his new Hippodrome, and although Sam thought it stupendous and that Barnum had remarkable “pluck,” he wrote that he couldn’t write the article at any price …

“…because it is out of my line; & you know, better than any other man, that success in life depends strictly upon one’s sticking to his line” [MTL 6: 368].