September 1 Saturday – At the Chalet des Abris in Etretat, France, Sam wrote to Charles W. Dayton, New York Postmaster about a notification of a registered letter sent from Austria.

I am all in a tremor & a sweat to get that registered letter from Austria, for I feel almost certain it is the Emperor resigning in my favor. Do shove it right along…[MTP].

Sam also wrote a humorous response marked “private” to a Mr. Morse (not further identified, but may be Morse, the US Consul-General) who evidently requested a letter of recommendation for a certain preacher’s brother.

I fly to you! Regardez the enclosed letter, & work into your understanding these details, to wit:

1. I know the writer but slightly;

2. I don’t know his brother at all;

3. I didn’t know he had a brother;

4. Am dam sorry he’s got a brother;

5. I don’t know our Consul at Havre;

6. I don’t know the Compagnie transatlantique personally.

Do you comprehend, now, that I am in an embarrassing situation? My daughter Clara knows the writer of the letter (Rev. Monsieur de Coppet, Protestant minister) first-rate — boarded & lodged in his family many months, & would vouch for him, but she doesn’t know his brother — hence this very richly complicated embarrassment.

Now then, it is but a little thing that is asked — let us tackle it.

My idea is this: I know you, you know the Consul, nobody knows anybody else, nor needs to. I vouch to you through Clara Clemens four our reverend father Dr. de Coppet; you vouch to the Consul through Clara Clemens & me for our reverend father Dr. de Coppet; the Consul vouches through you & Clara Clemens & me to the Compagnie Transatlantique for our reverend father Dr. de Coppet — & our reverend father vouches for his brother all by himself to the said Company.

How does that strike you? Isn’t that neat? Isn’t it diplomatic? Isn’t it a daisy? By this system a person could recommend Satan & get out without responsibility [MTP]

Joe Twichell, now in Venice, wrote a five-page letter to Sam.

Your glowing letter concerning Dr. Killgren, with its following P.S. overtook us last week at the Hague. They shall be private, as you direct, except in the case of Judy and her sick husband (whom we understand you to except.) … / I have had many thoughts of you lately….on our way from Amsterdam to Milan by the St. Gothard Tunnel route, passing through the Swiss magnificences below Lucerne, I seemed ever and anon to see you and me winging along those glorious Alpine roads, staring at the new unfoldings of splendor that every town brought into view — talking, talking, endlessly talking the days through,–days forever memorable to me. That was twenty one years ago! Think of it! We were youngsters, then, Mark; and how keen our relish of everything was! …

We shall bide here till the middle of next week, then maybe hark back to Switzerland and hang around there till it is time to go to England to take ship on the 23rd inst. Perhaps though we shall quit the continent a few — very few days earlier in order to pay a visit — as we have been urgently invited to do — to the Hawleys at Mrs. H’s ancestral place in Essex. We have, of course, since your letter gave the date of your return to London, quite given up the thought of seeing you; and count ourselves fortunate that we had that little sight of Clara [MTP].