A Tramp Abroad: Day By Day

June 14 Friday – Sam wrote in his notebook the price of a “suit of clothes—$18—cheaper than stealing.” He wondered if half the country was near-sighted, or did they wear glasses for style? [MJNJ 2: 102].

June 14 Saturday – Sam wrote a short note from Paris to Frank Bliss, this time about the reduction of pictures sent [MTLE 4: 77].

Sam also wrote Lucius Fairchild about tickets for the upcoming balloon trip:

I preferred to draw the line for Sabbath-outrages at horse-racing. I imagined a conversation like this—& it made me shudder.

      St. Peter. How did you come?

June 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from Paris to Frank Bliss. “I think I wouldn’t use the picture which represents me lying on my back drinking from a bottle” [MTLE 4: 79].

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].

June 17 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Paris to Frank Bliss.

“Please ‘process’ that waiter with the bottle, & a few other of the pictures & send proofs for Brown to judge by” [MTLE 4: 80].

Sam also wrote to his brother-in-law, Charles Langdon, encouraging him to come to Paris. Evidently, Charley wrote he could not come. Sam added that their “present plan is to leave her for London in the first fortnight of July…” [MTLE 4: 81].

June – Sam wrote “The Lost Ear-ring,” which was not published in his lifetime [Fables of Man 145- 148]. Note: source notes: “The tale begins with the date 6 June 1878, and the verso of manuscript page 13 bears the heading ‘Schloss Hotel Heidelberg, June 5’…The title was supplied at the time Bernard DeVoto was the Editor of the Mark Twain Papers.”

June – From Sam’s notebook:

“Presbyterian Young clergyman who sat among catholic worshippers & examined Baedecker’s map—said he forgot himself. These acts of brutality make religion pleasant and give people confidence in it, because they see how it builds up the humanities in the devotee” [MTNJ 2: 314].

From Livy’s pen we learn that Miss Mary Dunham of Hartford…

June 2 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel, Heidelberg to Moncure Conway. Sam had misgivings about giving his 17-year-old nephew, Samuel Moffett, a letter of introduction to the Conways, which he had done while visiting Fredonia. Sam asked them not to let the Moffett boy inconvenience them and suggested they simply give him a card of admission to the British Museum.

June 20 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:

“Shipped from Frankfort June 20, case marked B & C, containing crockery” [MTNJ 2: 291].

June 22 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:

Man hanging to boat in Neckar—people rescued him.

From a German paper:

“What constitutes official disgrace in America?”

Ans—God knows.

There is only one thing which is worse than H[eidelberg] coffee: that is H cream.

Superstitions lasting from old mythology

Must not climb a tree on St John’s Day (22d June?)—nor go on the water 8 days before up to 8 days after. [MTNJ 2: 103]

June 23 Monday – From Lucius Fairchild’s diary:

“Up in the balloon with Mark Twain – Mrs. Twain, Miss Spaulding & Guilwoodford” [Rees 8].

Mr. & Mrs. Fairchild were also in the balloon, which could accommodate 38 people [MTJ&N 2: 315n50]. See also May 3 entry.

June 24 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Paris to an unidentified person saying that “engagements” prevented “his attendance at a reunion” [MTLE 4: 82].

June 26 Wednesday – Livy was “startled” to discover passages in Sam’s notebook where Captain Wakeman would visit “various heavens.” Duckett writes:

“this may have been the earliest appearance of a protagonist cast down from his high estate which Bernard De Voto traced as it developed from a dream sequence and reappeared obsessively….in the determinism of ‘What is Man?’ privately published in 1904” [179].

June 26 Thursday – Francis D. Millet wrote on the yacht Sea Belle to Clemens about past good intentions by himself and Lily to write. They were on a “lark” for two weeks as there’d been “too many dinners and late hours.” He praised the yacht and the crew, and discussed their travel plans [MTP].

June 27 Thursday – Sam had received Howells’ June 2 reply to his May 4 Frankfort letter, in which Howells wrote: “Tell me about Capt. Wakeman in Heaven, and all your other enterprises”  [MTHL 1: 233]. Howells’ letter included news about Hay, Osgood, Waring, and Aldrich, briefly mentioning those traveling overseas.

June 27 Friday – Frank Bliss wrote to Sam, more details on pictures for the book.

June 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Heidelberg to William Seaver, one of the old New York journalism bunch Sam met in 1872.

Dear Old Seaver: / There be humorists in Germany. With infinite difficulty I have translated the following from a Mannheim paper:

June 28 Saturday – Lucius Fairchild’s diary: “engaged to Mark Twain” [Rees 8]

Bill and receipt from Munroe & Co, Paris for Normandy Hotel, 5,025 francs [MTP].

June 29 Saturday – In Sam’s notebook:

“We usually spend from 5 to 7 pm in the grounds, knitting, embroidering, smoking, & hearing the music. Pretty warm now” [MTNJ 2: 104].

June 3 Monday – Sam wrote a one-liner from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to Andrew Chatto, asking him to send a copy of Innocents Abroad and Roughing It [MTLE 3: 59].

June 4 Tuesday – Sam moved his den to “the very pinnacle of the Kaiserstuhl 1400 or 1500 feet up in the air above the Schloss Hotel, & 1700 above the Rhine Valley—which it overlooks” [MTLE 3: 64]. (See entry of June 16; letter to Warner).

From Sam’s notebook: “Rented & paid for a room for a month at the pretty little Wirtschaft under the Königstuhl” [MTNJ 2: 94].

June 5 and 6, 1878 addition – Fables of Man, p.144 gives this for “The Lost Ear-ring”: “The tale begins with the date 6 June 1878, and the verso of manuscript page 13 bears the heading ‘Schloss Hotel Heidelberg, June 5’”.

June 5 Thursday – Sam wrote a short note from Paris to the J. Langdon Co., advising them of his drawing £200 on a letter of credit that day.

“March—April—May—3 months & $4,000 gone, in Paris—but we have had considerable to eat for it, & a basket or so of wood to burn” [MTLE 4: 70].

Bill and receipt from Munroe & Co, Paris for Normandy Hotel [MTP].

June 8 Saturday – Clara Clemens and family celebrated her fourth birthday. The family custom was to give both girls presents on either’s birthday. They received dolls, books, cups, and flowers. In the afternoon they rode donkeys up a hill and enjoyed a picnic of bread, butter, and strawberries [Willis 119; Salsbury 79].

June 8 Sunday – Clara Clemens’ fifth birthday.

From Sam’s notebook:

“We went with Clara & Gen. Fairchild to the Grand Prix & saw Nubienne win the $20,000 given half by City Govt & ½ by RR’s –12 horses in that race” [MTNJ 2: 315].