June 16 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to Frank Bliss. Sam noted progress on the new book, hoping to be about half finished with the draft by the middle of July, 250 or 300 pages. He would send the manuscript:
“…as soon as our touring around will permit, & let you issue it in the winter or hold it till Spring, as shall seem best” [MTLE 3: 62].
Sam also wrote to Charles Dudley Warner, with Livy adding a line about Sam’s joke, ribbing her for mistaking “wonderful” in German for “windowshade.” Sam expressed frustration with the German language, but all he needed to use it for was to tell the little boys “who infest my way that I do not wish to buy any flowers today…since all the rest of the German nation speak English.”
Sam wrote about moving to a new den:
I have the only room in the little Wirthshaft there not lived in by the family. I start to climb the mountain every morning about 10 or a little after; I loaf along its steep sides, cogitating & smoking; rest occasionally & peer out through ragged windows in the dense foliage upon the fair world far below; then trudge further, to another resting-place, with an attentive ear to the pleasant woodland sounds, the manifold music of the birds—& finally I reach my den about noon, feeling pretty gorgeous & at peace with the world. I treat myself to a blast of the summit-breeze & a five minutes’ contemplation of the great Rhine-plain’s slumbering sea of mottled tints & shades, & then shut myself up tight & fast in my noiseless den & go to work. About 4 p.m. I take beer & listen to the family’s domestic news, or get one of the young girls to pilot me through some conjugations & declensions, or hold the book while I curse the Dative Case—then, about 5 or 5.15 I go loafing down the mountain again, find Livy & Clara in the Castle park, & listen to the band in the shadow of the ruin [MTLE 3: 64].
While Clemens wrote, Livy, Clara Spaulding, the girls, and their caretakers explored the castle on the grounds of the hotel. Similar to Quarry Farm summers, they picked flowers and played with the pets and farm animals—donkeys, goats, pigs, and chickens…Livy was pleased their money bought more in Europe. She recorded with pride that their rent and meals were a little less than $250 a month [Willis 118].
