May 12 Monday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Charles Webster. “Parsloe and Aldrich are not in Europe, they are playing in the West. I’m beginning to look for you here, now” [MTBus 254].

Sam also wrote to Howells, congratulating him on the acceptance of his sale of an opera to the “Bijou Theatre people” announced in a letter of May 10. Sam asked Howells to approach “that manager about running Sellers” [MTHL 2: 487].

Sam also wrote to Charles A. Dana, editor/owner of the New York Sun, who wrote on May 8 asking for “two or three short pieces not exceeding ten or twenty thousand words apiece” [MTHL 2: 490]. Sam replied:

“I am busy writing up my recent experiences on a bicycle, now, but when I finish that I will sit down & take a solid think & see if it is in me to write a short story of an acceptable sort….I want to write it” [MTHL 2: 490-1n1]. Note: Sam would ask Howells on June 1 how much the Sun paid.

Sam also replied to the May 9 of Lorenz Rohr. Born in Bavaria, Rohr emigrated to the U.S. in 1869. He translated French and German plays for Augustin Daly, and some standard American poems into German, including works by Longfellow and Lowell. Sam wrote this about the difficulty translating lyrics from “Lorelei.”

“The translators all approach it, but they all fail, in one place or another….There is a subtle something about the Lorelei which is intangible as air, & as elusive as a fragrance; & no translator has quite captured that, & in my belief no translator ever will. It is the soul of the thing, the poetry” [MTP].

Charles Webster wrote to Clemens: his travel plans to come see Clemens; pictures brought; paper costs [MTP].