May 24 Wednesday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Sam’s notebook:
Wednesday, May 24. Sailing along the Balearic Isles this forenoon. Due at Genoa tomorrow night. A perfectly smooth voyage, but unspeakably tedious. I am older by ten years than I was when I left New York. That fact is, the voyage is too smooth [NB 33 TS 13].
May 23 Tuesday – En route from New York to Genoa, Italy on the Kaiser Wilhelm II, Sam wrote a short note to Chatto & Windus, asking them to send a volume of his sketches containing The Jumping Frog to Captain Störmer of the Kaiser Wilhelm II, in care of Leupold Fratelli, Genoa, and charge it to his account [MTP].
Sam’s notebook:
Reached Gibraltar Tuesday at dawn. I did not go ashore. We sailed again at 8 o’clock [NB 33 TS 11].
May 22 Monday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II.
May 21 Sunday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Sam’s notebook:
Sunday, May 21. Eight days out. Shall reach Gibraltar Tuesday morning & Genoa Thursday night. / Day after day of “considerable” swell, but the ship moves on a level keel, unaffected by it. Apples lie on my table in my room day & night undisturbed. It is a wonderful ship in this regard [NB 33 TS 12].
May 20 Saturday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II.
May 19 Friday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Based on an account of the voyage by H. W. Mead to the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, June 25, 1893 p.6, “Brooklyn People in Lucerne,” “On the sixth day we came to and passed the Azores, with two of the islands in sight.” The article relates some of the entertainment on the voyage, including a contribution by Mark Twain:
May 18 Thursday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Sam’s notebook:
May 17 Wednesday – Sam was en route to Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm II.
May 16 Tuesday – 1,200 miles at sea, en route from New York to Genoa, Italy on the Kaiser Wilhelm II, Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull, delighted at her book (probably White Birches, just published):
It is a compact, orderly, symmetrical work, it lifts the reader to the dignity of its own high plane & keeps him there, & is singularly free from laziness, unconsequentialities, & irrelevant excursions. Yes, it is compact, compact [MTP].
May 15 Monday – The New York Times, p.5 ran an article about a new society, formed in April. Sam was named among the members. The object of the group was “to bring together, socially, the large number of men who have been identified with the development of the West”:
SOCIETY OF WESTERN MEN.
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It Promises to Flourish and Be Hospitable in This City.