March 29 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook on board the Kaiser Wilhelm II:
Wednes. 29. Nice ball on deck, with colored electric lights. I opened it with Capt. Störmer — waltz, with overcoat. Danced the Virginia reel, with Longfellow for a partner [NB 33 TS 5].
March 28 Tuesday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook:
Tuesday, Mch 28. The usual brilliant sunshine, the usual soft summer weather. Sea polished & nearly flat — almost a dead calm. We have never had a sea that disturbed the dishes on the table to speak of [NB 33 TS 4-5].
March 27 Monday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook:
Monday, 27. Up at 2.30 a.m. Passed AZORES 3.30 P.M. / D.O. Wills / Navy Cut / Bristol & London (in yeast. powder cans) [NB 33 TS 4].
Susy Clemens’ letter of late March to Louise Brownell relates her breaking Florence tradition:
March 26 Sunday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook on board: Sunny & beautiful. No sea. [NB 33 TS 4].
Meanwhile, in Florence, Livy wrote to Sam:
Youth my darling: How I should like to be out at sea with you today. It is here absolute perfection, a little cooler than yesterday which was about like July.
March 25 Saturday – Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. The ship likely was at Gibraltar by this time.
March 24 Friday – En route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York, Sam wrote to daughter Susy, relating an anecdote told by the nephew of Longfellow about Professor Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard and his introduction of his lifelong friend, William Hunt.
March 23 Thursday – Sam finished his Mar. 22 letter to daughter Jean:
In this ship they call you to meals with a bugle. When it is wandering about the far distance of the vessel it sounds quaint & sweet —
“O sweet & far from cliff & scar,
The horns of elfland faintly blowing.”
March 22 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Sailed in the Kaiser Wilhelm II at 11 a.m.” [NB 33 TS 4].
After boarding and departure, Sam began a letter to daughter Jean on the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II that he finished on Mar. 23:
March 21 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook on his departure from Florence:
Mch. 21. Drove to station with Livy, Susy & Jean. / Wm Walter Phelps arrived presently. He & I went to Genoa by the 11.35 train, arriving at 6.25 [NB 33 TS 4].
Sam and Phelps traveled 166 miles to Genoa, where Sam spent the night in a hotel [Mar 22 to Jean Clemens].
March 20 Monday – In Florence Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century, asking if he knew the head of the Agricultural Dept. in Washington. Would he write and ask for a hand full of seed-corn, two or three of the best kinds and send them to Livy? They were for Janet D. Ross, their Florence neighbor [MTP].