February 20 Sunday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Laurence Hutton referring to Hutton’s Dec. 14 letter which he started to answer then but didn’t send. He found Hutton’s letter “amidst the disorder of my table at this moment” and so answered. He thanked Hutton for his review of FE (Jan. issue of Harper’s), “a book which was written in blood & tears under the shadow of our irremediable disaster—a book whose outside aspect had to be cheerful, but who secret substance was made all of bitterness & rebellion.”

He also commented on “Mrs. Kellar’s conduct” (Likely Hellen Keller’s mother, Kate Adams Keller;

Helen wrote several letters to Mrs. Laurence Hutton) and gave news of family members:

Clara is working hard & faithfully under Leschetitzky; & between her work & her society-intercourse she gets some sleep now & then, but not much.

Jean has a couple of teachers & fills her time with study. She could be learning Russian, which has a large literature & is a beautiful language besides, but it is her caprice to learn Polish, so we make no objection, though it’s a pity. The Polish teacher does not know German or English or Italian, but teaches through the French tongue. If I had Jean’s fine gift for languages I wouldn’t fritter it away on Polish.

He closed with word that Livy was “in tolerable good health, & finds some trifle of relief from sorrow in taking care of the rest of us.” He kept himself “pretty well buried in literary work” and they all liked the city. He was sorry that Hutton was retiring from the column in Harper’s [MTP].

Note: See Beyond the Miracle Worker by Kim E. Nielsen (2009), especially p.148-155 for the full story on problems with Helen Keller’s preparations for Radcliffe College and her mother’s misguided interference. Sam sometimes spelled it “Kellar,” as did some newspapers.