April 9 Tuesday – In Paris, France Sam wrote to his nephew Samuel E. Moffett after receiving Samuel’s book, Suggestions on Government (1894). Moffett was still on the San Francisco Examiner staff.

I found the book furiously stimulating, infernally stimulating, exciting, exasperating. It is calm itself, calm as a snow-plow; but it roots a ragged & excruciating road through one’s feelings, one’s prides and patriotic vanities. …As a final result I find myself agreeing with Ambrose Bierce that there is no good government at all & none possible. Since with our opportunity we have failed to secure good government, the fault must be in the human race. Once more we are forced to admit that it was a mistake & a misfortune that Noah & his gang were not drowned.

Sam also announced their plans to sail in three or four weeks and spend the summer in Elmira. In the fall he hoped to read or lecture in San Francisco a few times [MTP]. Note: Just when Moffett sent a copy of his book is not clear; in a Sept. 21, 1893 letter to his sister, Sam had said he’d be glad to read Samuel’s book and would ask Fred Hall to get it. Moffett previously authored The Tariff. What It Is and What It Does (1892).

Sam also wrote a short note to H.H. Rogers, with Livy signing an authorization for Rogers to pay himself $270, “borrowed by my husband & charge to my account.” Sam added a line after this that he’d invented the form which appeared on the other page, “but Mrs. Clemens thinks she could have phrased it better herself” [MTHHR 140]. Note: the “other page” is the authorization, written in Sam’s hand but signed by Livy.