April 15 Tuesday – Sam wrote from the Hotel Normandy in Paris to Frank Bliss. Dysentery and rheumatism had laid Sam up “four-fifths of” his “six weeks’ residence in Paris in bed.” Sam wrote about being interviewed by the “World” representative (probably New York World), who told him that he “may have possibly solved the problem of International Copyright.” Sam wanted Frank’s father Elisha Bliss to sell of all but five or ten shares of Sam’s stock in American Publishing Co. [MTLE 4: 48].

Sam also wrote to Howells:

Have just got Livy L. Clemens & Miss Spaulding off to the Opera in charge of an old friend—(for I cannot stand anything that is in the nature of an Opera)—& here I find a letter from Susie Warner to Mrs. Clemens—I open it & my goodness, how she raves over the exquisiteness of Belmont; & the wonderful view; & Mrs. Howells’s brilliancy, & her deadly accuracy in the matter of detecting & driving the bulls-eye of a sham; & the attractiveness of the children; & your own “sweetness” (why, do they call you that?—that is what they generally call me); & the indescribably good time which she & Charley had; & my old pipe dressed up in ribbons & holding a candle, & making an unique & graceful ornament of itself…

Sam threw a few more arrows in Bret Harte’s direction but had read his new book of sketches, including “An Heiress of Red Dog,” and admitted that he’d seen “decided brightness on every page of it” though he also criticized it thoroughly. He also suggested getting up “a plot for a ‘skeleton novelette’…” which he’d tried before without success or enthusiasm from other writers [MTLE 4: 48-50].

Sam also wrote to Valentine Besarel, letter not extant but referred to in Besarel’s Apr. 22 reply.

Sam also wrote a short note to Samuel Troll, asking him to ship the “large box to Cunard S.S. Co,…marked like the music box…” to Liverpool [MTLE 4: 51].

John Harris U.S. Consul, sent “Certificate of the value of Currency” the value of the “Lira of Italy being taken at dollars 0.1930” [MTP].