April 30 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Never waste a lie, for you never know when you may need one” [NB 43 TS 9].

At 30 Wellington Court in London, England Sam wrote to Lyman J. Gage (1836-1902) concerning his protégé, Florizel Reuter enclosing a copy of his Apr. 28 to Grace Reuter, Florizel’s mother [MTP].

The accompanying copy is what I wrote to Mrs. Reuter. [on Apr. 28]

If the main purpose is that Florizel [Reuter] shall come before the public as an infant prodigy, he is competent for that already—in America, but not in Europe….If he avoided the most difficult music of the great masters & remained within the limitations proper to the degree of teaching which he has had, he would make a success, I am sure. He did that here, in our house, (with the exception of one number), & he stirred me. …

If I may speak plainly without offence—& certainly I mean none—she [Florizel’s mother] is a most unwise friend for the boy. He started in life with a fine nature: with the poet’s delicacy of feeling, the courteous instincts of the gentleman, the artist’s devotion to his art as his chiefest earthy god… [the remainder of the letter is missing, so we don’t have Sam’s explanation about the boy’s mother].

Note: Gage was an American financier, and Secretary of Treasury under McKinley/Theodore Roosevelt (1897-1902).