May 13 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus [MTP].

The books came. Many thanks.

The MS too. I still approve of it. But the attitude of mind which moved Mrs. Clemens to want it suppressed, remains. From the beginning the family have been rabid opponents of the war & I’ve been just the other way. I am indifferent about the article now. The time to print it was before Manila.

Next week we go to the country for the summer—3/4 of an hour from Vienna, by train. Then I will send you the new address [MTP]. Note: the MS was the “Fable” sent to C&W on May 6, followed by Sam’s cable request on May 7 to return it. The decisive battle of Manila Bay took place on May 1.

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.

Sam also wrote to Laurence Hutton after enjoying Hutton’s A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs (1898).

The book has arrived & I am very grateful to you for the dedications—both of them. I read 36 pages last night before I was ordered to bed, & it was good reading & I enjoyed it. There was a passage which made me laugh, & laugh again, & keep on breaking out. It was my semi-annual laugh. … (See the book-incident, p.21) There has long been a superstition in this family that profanity damages any story into which it is injected—a superstition which I have fought against as well as I could, but never with success. I will knock it galley-west from this out [MTP]. Note: the passage on page 21 is about a boy who expects to receive toy soldiers from his Scotch grandfather and instead is given a bible. See Gribben p. 342. This letter was also quoted in M.E. Wood’s book, Laurence and Eleanor Hutton / Their Books of Association (1905) p.66-7.

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers about the status of research on the “design -invention,” Szczepanik’s Raster machine, and the peat- wool machine. It had proven “slow and difficult work to get the necessary statistics” on the former; Sam included a sample of unbleached peat-wool cloth. Without accurate figures on either Sam had decided to put off a trip to London to promote either invention. “I can’t go unprepared,” he wrote. Also, Sam discussed Frank Bliss’ letter sent to him by Katharine I. Harrison (likely the Apr. 20 Bliss to Rogers) and asked, “Is it sound?—or a fairy tale?” Should he come over to “argue the case with the Harpers?” Sam thought Bliss’ plans “looks very grand” and was “waiting with large curiosity to hear what” Rogers thought of it. He closed with plans to move to the country for the summer and gave his new address: Kaltenleutgeben, near Vienna, at the Villa “Paulhof” [MTHHR 345-6 & n1; see source for full text of Apr. 20 Bliss to Rogers]. Note: the family made the move to Kaltenleutgeben on May 20.