May 31 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. First, he was “very glad indeed” to learn that Rogers’ daughter, Cara Broughton (Mrs. Urban H. Broughton), was now healthy, with no “peril” to her life.

”It is a standing peril to everybody’s life, from the cradle onward. The human being is a stupidly-constructed machine. He may have been a sufficiently creditable invention in the early and ignorant times, but to-day there is not a country in Christendom that would grant a patent to him.”

Sam reported he was not in London and thought it “best to cool down and stop hurrying” on Szczepanik’s inventions. Perhaps Rogers might ask Frank W. Cheney, who owned a silk factory in S. Manchester, Conn. about the peat machine; Sam was “afraid” to write him as he didn’t want to get his name in print about it. He’d “mulled a couple of hours over Barrow this morning” (George Barrow was holding out for interest on his Webster debt.

So far as I know he is the only similarly-situated creditor in all history since Shylock’s time who has demanded blood in addition to flesh. I cannot write him a polite letter, and neither you nor Mrs. Clemens would permit the other kind.

Sam was still waiting to hear Rogers’ opinion of Frank Bliss’ plans for the Uniform Edition and his “De Luxe scheme.” Sam gave Rogers the green light to “authorize him to go ahead with it,” if Rogers thought well of the scheme.

This is not a hasty notion of mine. Whenever a Uniform and a De Luxe can be marketed, that’s the time to do it; a delay of a year can be fatal, for a literary reputation is a most frail thing—any trifling accident can kill it; and its market along with it. We are settled, and have a cook. I hope we shall stay in this house 5 or 6 months.

With love to you [MTHHR 348]. Note: Sam rented the house through Oct.

Ambassador Horace Porter wrote from Paris to Sam.

“I received your letter and sent it to the chairman of the Committee …on reading of letters so as to have it read at the banquet. I did not attend as I have exhausted my mouth at the tomb of Lafayette in the afternoon. I thought your communication was in excellent taste and …you hit the nut on the head” [MTP].

Summer – Budd lists a private dinner where Sam spoke. “See Kate Douglas Wiggin, My Garden of Memory (1923), p. 293-4. However, Wiggin’s dating is incompatible with the place she gives” [“Supplement to MT Speaking”].