May 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the Gerhardts in Paris, France. Sam disclosed the family wouldn’t be traveling to Europe this year—pleading poverty.

We have made but few investments in the last few years which have not turned out badly. Our losses during the past three years have been prodigious.

Sam sent their love with the Twichells who would “sail for Europe June 14 (Julia doesn’t go)”. The rest of the letter is praise for the Gerhardt’s artwork, especially a work called “The Echo” [MTP]. Note: this “Echo” may have been Hattie’s painting, but Karl Gerhardt did a statuette by the same name which was placed on exhibition at Vorce’s in Hartford [Courant Feb. 7, 1885 p.1].

In Boston, Howells wrote to Sam about the P&P play, which Howells thought was “not more than half long enough,” needing more “fill in from the book with more life and incident.” He offered to show it to the Boston Museum Theatre people, but was convinced he knew what their answer would be [MTHL 2: 485].