May 16 Wednesday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris. He wrote to Livy.

Livy darling, I shall reach London this evening, no doubt; & then I shall seem very close to you & those others. It makes me joyful; & pretty impatient, too. The voyage makes a long, long interval, & conspicuously blank one, on account of the absence of letters from you. …

Phillip Bright is on board, sunburnt & skinned, from a voyage around the world. He sits by me at table, & is ever so nice. Willie Winter sits at my other side. I have known him a quarter of a century. He is 57, & knew Kate Field when she was 16 & he 18. [Note: William Winter, dramatic critic of the N.Y. Tribune; Philip Bright has not been further identified]

Sam also related that H.H. Rogers called him back into his office the last time he saw him and said privately, “If you get short, draw on me.” Sam noted Rogers made no limit and also relayed a message that Mrs. Annie Rogers gave him, that H.H. would be “very lonely” once Sam left. He added that he was “writing a review of Fenimore Cooper’s Deerslayer — the most idiotic book I ever saw.” He was eager to get back to see her and the family [MTP]. 

Sam also wrote to Henry H. Rogers, thanking him for offering a draw on him if he ran short of funds. Sam observed that Rogers was “just about arriving home,” from his ten-day trip to W. Virginia with John Dustin Archbold, who Sam playfully called the coffee-cooler’s bottle-holder (a reference to the Negro boxer Frank Craig prize-fight they’d attended together — see Dec. 30, 1893). Sam complained of lumbago. He also relayed that he’d told Frank Bliss to stay in touch with William Evarts Benjamin on the Uniform Edition of his works; and that Livy would be agreeable to Bliss publishing PW by subscription on the basis of “half of the profits above cost of manufacture,” the same sort of deal he’d made with Frank’s father, Elisha Bliss, on TA. Sam told of his writing work done on the voyage:

I have been at work on a magazine article all through this trip, but I didn’t get it finished. That is because it will make three articles. The first is nearly done & the notes are made for the other two & the articles themselves blocked out in my head [MTHHR 53-4]. Note: Sam conceived “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” as the beginning of a series to be called “Studies in Literary Criticism.”

The S.S. New York reached Southampton in the evening and Sam traveled to London. On July 4, he mentioned in a letter to Chatto & Windus that he left a letter on this date for Cara Rogers Duff at Brown’s Hotel on Dover Street in London.