August 1 Sunday – Since 1891 the Swiss celebrated this as their National Day (of Independence) owing to a reference in the 1291 Charter for “early August.” Parades, bonfires, and baking marked the day.

Sam’s notebook:

The Swiss seem to be at bottom good-hearted, & they are courteous though they exhibit no artificial polish; they are grave, not to say austere of countenance, independent a trifle repellant in their manner, they have no vivacity, & if they know how to smile—if they are furnished with machinery to smile with—they keep that secret to themselves. These remarks fit all the Swiss I have met excepting about a dozen [NB 42 TS 34].

Dial included an anonymous review of How To Tell a Story, and Other Essays, p.75. “A miscellany of uneven quality. ‘In Defense of Harriet Shelly’ ‘holds the right ground,’ ‘The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper’ ‘says some very sensible things,’ and ‘Traveling with a Reformer’ is a good thing, and a service to the American people’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p. 169].