November 8 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederic G. Kitton, responding to his Oct. 28 request to contribute remarks to Kitton’s forthcoming book, Dickensiana:A Bibliography of the Literature Relating to Charles Dickens and His Writings (1886). Although writing other biographies, Kitton was noted for his work on Charles Dickens. At seventeen years of age he worked as an apprentice on the staff of the London Graphic. He was also a skilled etcher.

Sam felt unqualified to comment on Dickens, but offered this story about Henry C. Robinson, “who plays billiards at my house every Friday night,” and who had seen Dickens in his first trip to America in 1842. Relating a “vast meeting at the Cooper Institute in New York” in 1867 where it was revealed that Robinson had seen Dickens on his earlier visit Sam quoted Robinson,

…Robinson said impressively:

“The meeting was brief; & yet, fleeting as it was, I can never forget it. It was a beautiful day…I was passing by the City Hotel, in my ancient town of Hartford, when suddenly I stopped, as one that is paralyzed; for there, in the great bay window, alone — & meetly solitary in a greatness which could be no otherwise than companionless — sat one whom all the universe know — Dickens! Eagerly I pressed my face against the pane, & in one moment was lost, absorbed, enchanted. Presently I saw his lips begin to open: was he going to speak to me? — to me? I verily held my breath. And — gentlemen — he did speak to me!”

(Immense applause — thunders of applause — in the midst of which it was noticed that Robinson was blandly walking off the platform. Voices — “Hold on, hold on! — what the nation did he say?”)

“Well, he only said, ‘Go ‘way, little boy, go ‘way!’” [MTP; MTNJ 3: 302n9].

Charles Webster wrote good news to Sam:

The contract with General Sheridan is signed….The contract is on the half profit basis [MTLTP 203n1].

Richard W. Gilder for Century Magazine wrote a short note to Sam about an article in the magazine which he didn’t ask about. Gilder offered a copy [MTP].