January 24 Tuesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I am gradually getting over the disorganizing effects of sudden wealth, steadying down & resuming normality. It was a gaudy trip that that $17,000 made when it went lecturing for half a semester under your able management. I wish to retain your services, sir; & it is my intention to raise your salary. Let us get back on the financial platform, now, & do another tour. It is much better than literature. Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, & for the improvement & general elevation & purification of mankind, but it has no practical value.

Sam related sending “a short article” (“Diplomatic Pay and Clothes”) to the Forum with instructions to send it on to Rogers should they not want it. (It ran in the Mar., 1899 issue). He complained that Vienna as a place to work was bad in the winter—late night hours led to sleeping till noon and “disjointed, unconcentrated work.” He wondered how Howells could work in New York, and mused that Washington or Richmond might be cheaper to live in.

I’m not asking questions—I’m only thinking aloud. You are not to waste your moments on letters to me. A long letter from you gives me pleasure, but it also gives me a pang, because I know the cost of it to a man driven as you are. Just shout me a line, & leave me to imagine the rest. I’m competent [MTHHR 385-6].