April 8 Friday – At the Grand Hotel Sud Tirol In Trient, Austria en route to Florence, Italy, Susy Clemens wrote her “beloved,” Louise Brownell. Joseph Verey and Susan Crane escorted the Clemens girls. The letter was postmarked Apr. 16, but this is the date assigned by the MTP.

…The day’s journey from Berlin to Munich was dreary and very tiring. We suffered much from the cold and as we were dressed for warm weather felt foolish and sort of lost. The day in Munich it rained too and was most unpleasant but yesterday was absolutely heavenly….We are staying here today for the rest and move on to Florence tomorrow….This afternoon we go for a drive and are all hoping we shall find some flowers on the way. We must say good by here tonight as we leave at six in the morning. Between times I am finishing Laurence Oliphant. …

I hope there will be a letter from you at Rome when I get there [Cotton 101130-34].

Note: Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888) was a British author and mystic, who wrote several novels, best known for his 1870, Piccadilly. Several of Mrs. Margaret Oliphant’s books are listed in Gribben, p 515-6, though none of Laurence’s. This letter shows that the Clemens girls traveled through Munich, Trient, and Florence, before reaching their parents in Rome.

Georges Ducquois for Art et Critique wrote from Paris, France completely in French, translated here by Holger Kersten:

Under the title Animals and Authors I have undertaken to write a kind of History of Animals in Literature [literally: “Literary Animals”] by examining the role which these “inferior brothers” play (1) in the home (2) in the works of our literary writers.

Ducquois wrote he’d received responses to the question, “Do animals have the power of thought?” from “our best novelists and poets (Zola, de Goncourt, Daudet, Cladel, Mendés, Huysmans, Sully-Prudhomme, Coppée, etc)” and asked Sam to send his “opinion and…personal thoughts” [MTP].

Eastman Photographic Material Co. of Paris billed Sam from Nice 75 Francs for development and prints [MTP].

Sara Provost wrote from Springfield, Mass. to Sam — a begging letter [MTP].

Charles D. Thompson for Outlook Club of Montclair, N.J. a group of about 500 ladies and gentlemen, solicited Sam to read at their May 29 meeting [MTP].