April 16 Sunday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.

In Florence, Livy wrote to him:

You did not tell me anything about sending an article or articles to the Cosmopolitan. Why did you do that? I should greatly prefer appearing in the Century or Harpers. What made you do it?…

My dear darling child you must not blame yourself as you do. I love you to death, and I would rather have you for mine than all the other husbands in the world and you take as good care of me as any one could do [LLMT 263-4].

Note: The first segment shows Livy kept an active hand in Sam’s literary endeavors.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to Sam:

Dear Mark Twain: / There are, or there seem to be, certain storms ahead in my affairs to which I wish to refer with elaborate discretion. It is possible however that you may hear before many days from a gentleman signing himself Charles Baxter and hailing from Edinburgh. He is my friend and agent at home; and if he does address you I ask as a particular favor to give his proposals far more consideration than they deserve.

The truth is that (like yourself) I think I begin to be weary of publishers. I am accordingly trying to reorganize the whole terms of my business; and if this fail, Mr. Baxter has my instructions to apply to no one else than Mark Twain. I do not know whether you ever consent to handle such works as mine. I don’t sit up to be General Grant or the author of Huckleberry Finn.

Stevenson reported his health “vastly improved,” and recalled the day they spent together in Wash. Square. If his affairs could be put straight, Sam would not hear from Baxter [MTP].