February 11 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, replying to a letter (not extant) of several weeks before.

Considering all the circumstances a 20,000 sale is certainly a little disappointing, for it is a most attractive-looking book; however, maybe the times will improve. They have been bad about long enough.

I am expecting the book for the princess every day, now. An unornamented crushed Levant binding is all I want. It needn’t cost a fancy price, & I don’t want it to.

Sam also offered several ideas for the use of his maxims; he didn’t like calendars as they had a short sale period; postcards with the maxims might prove profitable, noting “There are post- card collectors now-a-days, you know.” He enclosed a postcard that had the postage printed on the card, a method preferred by “our people” [MTP]. Note: the book was for Princess Metternich. Sam entered his postcard idea to Bliss in his notebook [NB 40 TS 12].

The Clemens family attended the funeral of Ritter von Dutschka, who died on Feb. 9 [NB 40 TS 12].

Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam that his last interest payment (often called “dividends”) had been made to all the creditors except the Mt. Morris Bank, George Barrow & Son, and Mrs. Jesse Grant. The amount she held in Sam’s account totaled $19,447.47: “I wish I could shout it across the water to you, so that you would get it ten days ahead of this letter” [MTHHR 322]. See MTB 1056. Sam’s final debt would be to George Barrow & Son, and he would respond on Aug. 19 to a notice of settlement of that debt from Rogers, the notice not extant.

Sam also inscribed a copy of FE to Mr. & Mrs. R. Howard Krause: “To / Mr. & Mrs. R. Howard Krause / with the kindest regards of / The Author. / Vienna, Feb. 11, 1898” [MTP].