June – Rodney evaluates Sam’s reputation after his stay on the Continent:

Taken in perspective, Mark Twain’s reception abroad had become something phenomenal by 1899. As a personality he was probably the best-known and most popular American among Western Europeans. As a writer his outreach beyond national and cultural boundaries was extraordinary. His major works had been published in more than six hundred international editions. …foreign editions made up almost three-quarters of the total output. … Those last two years on the Continent added little to his literary stature, but his writings and his personality assured his celebrity in Austria-Hungary. In the spring of 1899 he was oriented toward England and a closer kinship with English-speaking people. London was still his lodestone after all those European migrations [230].

Two weeks during June, before the 23rd, Sam investigated Kellgren’s osteophathic treatments at his London facility. In his Aug. 3 to Rogers from Sanna, Sweden, Sam related what made his decision.

So I went down to Kellgren’s London gymnasium and tried the treatment, and saw that it would prop a person up physically, whether it could cure disease or not. We decided to come here to the summer establishment and take the treatment 3 months [Aug. 2 to Rogers]. Note: in his June 24 to Knight, Sam mentioned buying the tickets for passage to Sweden, so these visits to Kellgren’s London facility took place prior to June 23. See also July 30 to Walker, where Sam claimed he “experimented with it a fortnight at the London headquarters.”