May 16 Tuesday – 1,200 miles at sea, en route from New York to Genoa, Italy on the Kaiser Wilhelm II, Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull, delighted at her book (probably White Birches, just published):

It is a compact, orderly, symmetrical work, it lifts the reader to the dignity of its own high plane & keeps him there, & is singularly free from laziness, unconsequentialities, & irrelevant excursions. Yes, it is compact, compact [MTP].

Based on an account of the voyage by H. W. Mead to the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, June 25, 1893 p.6, “Brooklyn People in Lucerne,” the third day out, “we reached a summer sea, upon which we sailed during the remainder of the voyage.” Later in the article is mention of Mark Twain.