September – Sam wrote a parody of the poem by James Leigh Hunt, “About Ben Adhem”. See Sam’s parody “Abou Ben Butler” [MTNJ 2: 372-3]. Sam’s second of three McWilliams sketches, “Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning” ran in the September issue of the Atlantic Monthly [Wells 23]. Sam copied in his notebook John Sheffield’s famous quatrain:

Read Homer once, & you can read no more;

For all books else appear so mean, so poor;

Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,

And Homer will be all the books you need [MTNJ 2: 371].