December 3 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Pamela Moffett, irritated by Arden Smith’s missed visit of Dec. 2. He couldn’t remember the man at all, and feared he’d been “an envoy from Ella [Lampton].” Smith was staying at the Allyn House, but Sam refused to go back out into the storm.

I wouldn’t with any heartiness turn out in such weather to hunt up any stranger….So I didn’t go to the hotel. I argued that if his visit was on business, he would repeat it when he saw that I did not come; & that if it was only a call of courtesy, he should have waited the 15 minutes he was asked to wait….You may meet the Smiths, & they may speak of this matter; so I thought I would post you….for I am daily persecuted by the kindly attention of strangers & remote acquaintances, & am prejudiced against the whole tribe [MTP].

 Along these same lines, Sam wrote a two-liner to Robert H. Moore:

The weather — consider the weather. The “sentiment” would be profane; & so is withheld [MTP].

Sam also responded to James B. Pond, who took Sam at his word and asked if he’d introduce Henry M. Stanley in Boston for his Dec. 9 lecture.

Of course I’ll introduce him in Boston if you think it would be good judgment, good policy — which to me is doubtful. He ought to have a Boston gun; & the biggest gun in the Boston battery, too.

Sam also discussed train schedules to Hartford (Pond and Stanley were coming from N.Y.) for Wednesday, Dec. 8, the day of his lecture. Dinner would be at 4:30, Sam wrote [MTP; See Dec. 6 to Parker].

Note: Stanley sailed from Southampton, England on the Aller Nov. 19, arriving in New York Nov. 27, where he stayed at the Everett House. He was last in the U.S. for three months in 1873. This from the Nov. 28 New York Times, p.14:

His present visit will be of very little longer duration [than his last visit], his intention being to return to Europe in March after he has lectured in the principal cities of the United States. Mr. Stanley looks young and robust, his complexion is ruddy, his hair seems to suggest that time is treating him with an extra amount of kindness, while in manner he is genial, entertaining, and full of anecdote. He has an inexhaustible fund of information, which he dishes out in the most attractive form possible.