July 17 Wednesday – Joe Twichell left for Europe to join the Clemens family. From Joe’s journal:

Sailed from New York by the Cunard S.S. Abyssinia, with my dear friend Rev. Dr. Parker for a companion. Met Mark Twain and his family at Baden-Baden Germany, with whom I spent six weeks in Germany and Switzerland most happily. M.T. and I made a number of pedestrian excursions and enjoyed a world of pleasure together [Yale, copy at MTP].

One of the editors of the Hartford Courant sent Twichell clippings before he embarked. Joe noted the different stances that various newspapers took about Sam paying Joe’s way. The New York Mail merely announced that “‘Mark’ will foot the bills.” The New York Sun printed this rather snide piece:

Mark Twain has sent for his pastor, the Rev. Mr. Twichell of Hartford, to join him in a tour through Switzerland and Germany at Mark’s expense, and this pastor, the Rev. Mr.Twichell, will go. This is the reward held out to the rising generation of American humorists—the successful comic man will not only be able to afford a pastor, but to take him around Europe, and hang the expense. The pastor must, however, be careful that his humorous friend does not use him as material for some new ”Innocents Abroad,” because it might then turn out that the trip was at the pastor’s expense after all [In Twichell’s notebook, undated, Yale]