December 23 Monday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam; not found at MTP though catalogued as UCLC 32703.

December 21 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

“Munich, Dec 21—On scores of street corners, in the snow, are groves of Xmas trees for sale—and the toy & other shops are crowded and driving a tremendous trade” [MTNJ 2: 255].

December 20 Friday – Sam’s notebook:

“To-day, by telegraph in the papers, comes the sad news of Bayard Taylor’s death yesterday afternoon in Berlin, from Dropsy. I wrote him 3 or 4 days ago congratulating him on his recovery. He was a very lovable man” [MTNJ 2: 254].

December 18 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

“On some of the large ocean steamers the old-fashioned settees have been replaced by revolving arm chairs—Harper’s Weekly gravely makes this preposterous statement. Who could stay in one in a storm?” [MTNJ 2: 252].

December 14 Saturday – Sam wrote from Munich to Bayard Taylor. Sam had heard in Italy a few weeks back that Taylor was ill, but then saw it contradicted in a newspaper. This day he read that the contradiction was in error. Sam ended by saying they would try to “run over to Berlin in the spring.” [MTLE 3: 112]. Bayard Taylor, the “father of American travel literature,” died five days after Sam wrote him, on Dec. 19, 1878.

December 8 Sunday – Livy, Susy and Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Most of the letter is from Livy to her mother, whom she’d only received one letter from since they left home. Livy wrote of sore throats and ear aches, Clara Spaulding and Christmas gifts. What her mother had sent was too much, Livy wrote (several times during the trip her mother sent money).

December 2 Monday – Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for a birthday gift (a “covered Krug of beaten brass”). Sam wrote about the many noises that began at 5 AM and were added to by 7, and how many of the things they disliked upon arrival had now been fixed, cleaned, attended to.

December 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to his mother, and sister Pamela:

I broke the back of life yesterday & started down-hill toward old age. This fact has not produced any effect upon me that I can detect.

December – Sam inscribed in a copy of Joseph Norman Lockyer’s (1836-1920) Elementary Lessons in Astronomy (1877): “S.L. Clemens, Munich, Dec. 1878” [Gribben 415].

November 30 Saturday – Sam’s 43rd birthday. Sam told a story or gave a speech (often there was very little difference) at the American Artists Club in Munich. Just what Sam said has been lost. Sam’s notebook: