January 30 Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Howells. He received a letter from Howells in the morning and discovered the two articles (possible chapters for his current book) he’d sent had not been lost in transit. Sam couldn’t write the “sharp satires on European life” that Howells had mentioned, for he wasn’t in a “calm, judicial good-humor” mood he felt was required.

…whereas I hate travel, & I hate hotels, & I hate the opera, & I hate the Old Masters—in truth I don’t ever seem to be in a good enough humor with ANYthing to satirize it; no, I want to stand up before it and curse it, & foam at the mouth,—or take a club & pound it to rags & pulp. I have got in two or three chapters about Wagner’s Operas, & managed to do it without showing temper…[MTLE 4: 13].