• Marienbad

    Submitted by scott on

    Of the trip from Bayreuth to Marienbad, Schornhorst  (pg 7) writes: "The family left Bayreuth on August 11 and railed some sixty miles east to Marienbad, in Bohemia, where they spent the remained of the month.  Sam was so enchanted by the landscape along the route; he had "never made so picturesque a journey before," ... " and there cannot be another trip of the like in the world that can furnish so much variety and of so charming and interesting sort."

  • August 15, 1891 Saturday

    Submitted by scott on

    August 15 Saturday – In Marienbad, Germany Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, responding to questions Chatto formed from a newspaper article.

    Yes, the newspaper items stated the idea of the novel correctly. Title, “The American Claimant.” Chief character, Colonel Mulberry Sellers….Yes indeed, we shan’t go home without a run over to England first. That will be a year hence [MTP].

  • August 17, 1891 Monday

    Submitted by scott on

    August 17 Monday – In Marienbad after a few days Sam took part in the baths.

    The crowds that drift along the promenade at music time twice a day are fashionably dressed after the Parisian pattern, and they look a good deal alike, but they speak a lot of languages which you have not encountered before, and no ignorant person can spell their names, and they can’t pronounce them themselves.

  • August 20, 1891 Thursday

    Submitted by scott on

    August 20 Thursday – In Marienbad:

    I went up to the Aussichtthurm the other day. This is a tower which stands on the summit of a steep hemlock mountain here; a tower which there isn’t the least use for, because the view is as good at the base of it as it is at the top of it. But Germanic people are just mad for views — they never get enough of a view — if, they owned Mount Blanc, they would build a tower on top of it.

  • August 23, 1891 Sunday

    Submitted by scott on

    August 23 Sunday – In Marienbad:

    One of the most curious things in these countries is the street manners of the men and women. In meeting you they come straight on without swerving a hair’s breadth from the direct line and wholly ignoring your right to any part of the road. At the last moment you must yield up your share of it and step aside, or there will be a collision. I noticed this strange barbarism first in Geneva twelve years ago.

  • August 27, 1891 Thursday

    Submitted by scott on

    August 27 ThursdayErasmus Wilson for Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette wrote to Sam attaching a small clipping which reported Mark Twain consumes over 3,000 cigars in a year and could not work well without continuous smoking. Wilson had been cured of the habit by one Mr. Keeley and recommended Sam get the remedies directly. “Maybe you don’t want to quit. If so this does not count” [MTP].