January 18 Sunday – Robert Green Ingersoll, whom Sam had met at the Chicago banquet of Nov. 14, 1879, wrote to Sam about attendance at a festival for Robert Burns:

My Dear Clemens, I never agreed to attend the Burns festival. Dawson wrote me that you were to be there, and that was the principal inducement held out for me to be on hand. I love Burns, but I hate to see a lot of common d—d Presbyterian Scotch pretending that they appreciate that great and tender soul….The truth is, Scotland was unworthy of Robert Burns….If you are, after all, going to the festival telegraph me. I shall be at Brockport, N.Y. on the 19th, and at Albion on the 20th [MTBus 141].