April 12 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam added to his Apr. 2, 5, 6 letter to William Dean Howells.

April 12. Jean has been in here with a copy of Literature, complaining that I am again behind you in the election of the 10 consecrated members; & seems troubled about it & not quite able to understand it. But I have explained to her that you are right there on the ground, inside the poll-booth, keeping game—& that that makes a large difference in these things [MTP].

Note: J.K. Bangs, editor of Literature, took a readership poll to choose the ten living writers for the American Academy. The results were: William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Daniel Willard Fiske, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Henry James, Frank Stockton, Bret Harte, S. Weir Mitchell, Charles Dudley Warner, and George W. Cable. Sam ranked favorably to a similar poll by The Critic some fifteen years before, when he came in 14th in the “Forty Immortals” [MTHL 2: 693n7].