January 21 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Munich to Howells. he praised Howells’ The Lady of Aroostook., and made this observation:

If your literature has not struck perfection now we are not able to see what is lacking. It is all such truth—truth to the life; everywhere your pen falls it leaves a photograph. I did imagine that everything had been said about life at sea that could be said….Possibly you will not be a fully accepted classic until you have been dead a hundred years,—it is the fate of the Shakespeares & of all genuine prophets,—but then your books will be as common as Bibles, I believe. You ain’t a weed, but an oak; you ain’t a summer-house, but a cathedral. In that day I shall still be in the Cyclopedias, too,—thus: “Mark Twain; history & occupation unknown—but he was personally acquainted with Howells” [MTLE 4: 4; see also MTHL 1: 247n1]. 

In his notebook, Sam wrote that the only man who might be well remembered a hundred years hence was Henry M. Stanley, the explorer/journalist [MTNJ 2: 304]. He wanted Howells to hang on to a play they’d begun together, one that included Orion as a character. Sam wrote they thought they “were going to lose our little Clara yesterday, but the danger is gone, to-day, apparently.” The family planned on remaining in Munich till the middle of March [MTLE 4: 5].

Sam’s article “The Recent Great French Duel” ran in the Hartford Courant, page one [Courant.com]. It also ran in the February issue of the Atlantic Monthly [Wells 22].