May 25 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:
How we miss our big wood fires, these raw cold days in the end of May. In all this region I suppose they’ve nothing but their close stoves, which warm gradually up & then stink & swelter for hours. It is the same vile atmosphere which a furnace has which has no cold-air box & so heats & reheats the same air [MTNJ 2: 86].
The thunder generally preceded the lightning last night at theatre, which was wrong [88].
The Grand Duchess of Baden passed through to-day—streets & bahnhoff decked with bunting & cannon fired. She is the Emperor’s daughter & was in the carriage with him last week when that communist fired on him [88].
Entry Date
Links to Twain's Geography Entries
Editor Note
On 11 May 1878, a plumber named Emil Max Hödel failed in an assassination attempt on William in Berlin. Hödel used a revolver to shoot at the then 81-year-old Emperor, while he and his daughter, Princess Louise, paraded in their carriage on Unter den Linden.[3] When the bullet missed, Hödel ran across the street and fired another round which also missed. In the commotion one of the individuals who tried to apprehend Hödel suffered severe internal injuries and died two days later. Hödel was seized immediately. He was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and executed on 16 August 1878.[18] (Wikipedia)