January 9 Wednesday – The New York Times, rarely complimentary to Mark Twain, ran an editorial, p.4. with no title:

In the current number of the North American Review Mark Twain, with a humor somewhat shallow as well as savage, says that M. Paul Bourget came over here, and, after a brief inspection of our tricks and our ways, conducted much after the manner in which naturalists study new bugs, proceeded to explain us. Of course M. Bourget did no such thing; the whole tenor of his book proves the bug simile to be a peculiarly unjust one. What he undertook to tell, and did, was the impression that America and Americans made upon a Frenchman. That he saw certain things other than they are, and thought the saw certain things that are not at all, simply adds to the book’s value and should not be cause for either anger or irritation. M. Bourget is rather more interesting when he is wrong than when he is right, for it is then that he best helps us understand — France. And, really, for a good-tempered and therefore intelligent American, France, not America, is the subject of “Outre Mer.” M. Bourget knows France very thoroughly, he worthily represents the best part of its literature, its learning, and its life, and upon all of these his comment, whether oblique or direct, should be treated with at least ordinary courtesy. [See also excerpt from Sam’s Bourget article Jan. 20, 1895].

Andrew Chatto wrote to Sam with, “much pleasure in enclosing you full particulars of the cost of manufacture of the two books you ask about “Clark Russell’s Round the Galley Fire”, and your Puddnhead Wilson. … I have written to Mr. Fauveau of Paris asking him on your behalf the very modest acknowledgment of £20 for permission to translate the Million Pound Note” [MTP].