May 30, 1896 Saturday

May 30 Saturday – The Clemens party arrived in Bloemfontein, S. Africa at 4 p.m. after “18 hours steady travel….Fine cars, easy riding, all the conveniences.” He thought the veldt in winter “as beautiful as Paradise,” and Bloemfontein “even prettier than Pretoria” [Philippon 19; June 1 to Livy]. Sam wrote a letter of admiration to Mrs. Chapin (Adele):

Do you know you should have been an advocate — you got at the deep places in our hearts, Friday night. It was a strong, moving speech. It made me want to follow and endorse and applaud [MTP from Chapin’s 1931 Their Trackless Way p.121].

Parsons, in his article tracing Sam’s contact with social clubs, writes of his stop in Bloemfontein:

There he crossed the covered veranda of the brick and stone Bloemfontein Club to pick up a letter of introduction to President Martinus Theunis Steyn left for him by the American journalist, Poultney Bigelow. The lack of any reference to Twain in the Club minutes makes it unlikely that a special dinner was arranged in his honor [“Clubman in S.A” 249].

In the evening Sam gave his “At Home” lecture at Town Hall to record crowds. Reviews published June 1: Friend of the Free State; June 6: Diamond Fields Advertiser. Sam and Smythe took rooms at the Free State Hotel; they may have heard the news that all but six of the Reform prisoners were released [Philippon 19].

William Dean Howells’ review of JA ran in Harper’s Weekly, XLI p.535-6. Page 536 sported seven pictures of Sam from 1873 to 1895. Howells observed that Twain was more restricted by historical facts in this book than in CY, and his attempts to portray the language and attitudes of the age were less successful than passages in which he wrote in his own idiom: “I am not at all troubled when he comes out with a good, strong, downright American feeling; my suffering begins when he does the supposed medieval thing” (reprinted in MMT 129-35) [Tenney 25].