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.

— — — —

It Promises to Flourish and Be Hospitable in This City.

May 14 Sunday – 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,” there was seasickness the first two days out. Note: no documentation has been found for Sam ever being seasick.

May 13 Saturday – At 10 a.m. the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II sailed for Genoa, Italy with Sam on board. Sam’s notebook:

May 13, Saturday. Room 268 Kaiser Wilhelm II. Cast off at 10.15 a.m., discharged pilot at 12.30. Only half a trip of passengers [NB 33 TS 12].

May 12 Friday – In New York, Sam was out in the city nearly all day until 9 p.m., including “a little visit” with Charles Dudley Warner. At midnight Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, who had come from his home at 48 West 59th Street to say goodbye.

I am so sorry I missed you….I expected to get up to your house again, but got defeated.

I am very glad to have that book for sea entertainment, & I thank you ever so much for it.

May 11 Thursday – In New York at the Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote to Ida Langdon (Mrs. Charles J. Langdon) on Webster & Co. letterhead. After relating his communications with Livy upon arriving and seeing enough Hartford people at the hotel to call it a “suburb of Hartford,” Sam thanked her:

I sail at 10 Saturday morning, & am all ready, though my shirts ain’t; they are in the wash.

May 9 Tuesday – In the morning Sam took the ten-hour train ride from Elmira back to New York, where he checked into the Murray Hill Hotel. Livy cabled (not extant) asking how his cold was and Sam “answered properly,” which may have been another cable [May 11 to Ida Langdon].

May 8 Monday – In Elmira Sam thought he’d “steal a moment” and write to Mary Mason Fairbanks, now in Newton Mass. with her daughter. Sam’s letter reads as a response to Mary’s (not extant) and her news that Edward Bok, editor of the Ladies Home Journal, had criticized one of Sam’s unpublished pieces, in an article as Sam’s next letter to Hall reflects. Sam marked the letter “Private & Confidential” due to his reference to Edward Bok:

May 7 Sunday – At Quarry Farm Sam answered Susy’s recent letter, describing familiar places at the farm, including the children’s playhouse, Ellerslie, which had,

…just been furnished with a bran-spang-new shingle-roof at great Expense, & Mrs. Crane says that the owners of Ellerslie are a hard lot in the matter of repairs & taxes.

Sam also described the barn and each horse that Susy and Jean would have been familiar with:

May 6 Saturday – In Elimra at Quarry Farm, Sam wrote a short note to Livy: