Submitted by scott on

June 20 Saturday – In Port Elizabeth, with no performance to give until Monday, the Clemenses likely engaged in sightseeing. Parsons writes,

…local people expected him to get away from that billiard table and look around. Besides the “beautifully decorated” Town Hall, where Mark would be “At Home” to audiences, there were parks to see, hills and vales, Baaken’s River, the fashionable suburb of Humewood, the Seawall Promenade, Marine Drive, the Lighthouse 250 feet above high-water mark, and the pyramidal obelisk to the memory of Lady Donkin, the motto of whose survivor was In meliora spera (Hope for better things). Of course, during their eight days alone in Port Elizabeth, Livy and Clara may have done “the Liverpool of South Africa,” and Mark wanted to be protected against conventional sights [“Traveler in S.A.” 29].

Several newspapers, including African Critic, Diamond Fields Advertiser, and the Port Elizabeth Telegraph, ran “Critique and Causerie,” containing Sam’s opinions on Olive Schreiner, William Thomas Stead, and French novels. (See Gribben 608, 659.) Sam would seek Schreiner’s, The Political Situation in Cape Colony on Dec. 24 of this year, when he requested it from Chatto & Windus.

Links to Twain's Geography Entries

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.   

Contact Us