April 7 Thursday – The front page of the Apr. 8 Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt displayed a drawing engulfing nearly the entire page of firemen rescuing a suicidal countess at the Hotel Metropole. Mark Twain is pictured gawking out one window [Dolmetsch 52].

The Independent anonymously reviewed FE, p. 451. “Mark Twain has never done any better work than in this book. In mere literary craftsmanship he has done nothing as good, and his fun is as keep and mirth- provoking as ever.” He is more serious than in the past, but “the wit is genuine, and so is the wisdom.” This is a superior travel book, and MT “is always fresh, interesting, stimulating.” He is tolerant in the larger way of seeing wrongs and their consequences, “yet disposed more to pity than to punish. In all his wit there is a large kindliness of nature that leaves no rankling sting after its well-aimed shafts….he

will always be sweet-natured enough to be most heartily liked” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Sixth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Spring 1982 p. 8-9].