January 12 Sunday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells after receiving some poetry from Hydesaburo Ohashi, which he evidently enclosed here.

Say—Howells, don’t you want to discover a Japanese poet & introduce him to the public? It seems to me that his lines about the moon are poetry; also that the satire in the closing lines of the first paragraph exhibits a smart & calculated reserve not found every day in a beginner. …

I cannot claim to know poetry when I see it, but instinct moves me to think that the talent must be in this Jap, else how could he project even the semblance of it into an alien tongue but partially mastered? [MTHL 2: 739]. Note: see also Gribben p.515 under Ohashi.

In N.Y.C. William Dean Howells wrote to Sam responding to his Jan. 8 letter:

Don’t worry (not that I suppose you would) about Aldrich’s letter. It will be sure to turn up, unless some one has taken it and is trying to unset the jewels and sell them for the value of the stones.

I hope you are surely coming to the Brander Matthews lunch next Saturday; I like now and then to see you.

Howells included a paragraph on his daughter Pilla, who had left for Bermuda after a successful calendar design that had sold 5,000 copies [MTHL 2: 739-40]. Note: Howells’ plea about the Matthews luncheon implies Sam did not attend the Jan. 9 luncheon at Moretti’s.

Margaret Deland in Boston, wrote to Sam, returning his “House Party” form letter; yes, she’d been invited to contribute a story; no she had not done so [MTP]. Note: postmarked Jan. 12.