May 15 Friday – Sam attended Chauncey M. Depew’s talk on “Poetry and Politics in the British Isles” at the Opera House in Hartford. Governor Henry B. Harrison (1821-1901) was in attendance. Sam and Joseph R. Hawley and other dignitaries sat on the lecture platform. The lecture included Depew’s impressions of Ireland, Scotland, and England, along with personal anecdotes [Hartford Courant, May 16, 1885 p.1]
In Hartford, Sam wrote to Dr. George C. Jarvis, arranging to have minor surgery on his palate the first week in June. He was giving a Hartford reading and wanted the doctor to come to his house for the procedure right after. “I shan’t need my voice after that reading, nor my palate either” [MTP].
George W. Cable telegraphed: “All intimations that you and Pond are not my Beloved Friends are false and if you can say the same of me do so as privately or as publicly as you like” [MTP].
L.A. Stager for Stager School of Languages wrote a fan letter with some history [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Engel’s fine compliment”