June 8 Monday – Clara Clemens’ seventeenth birthday.

At sea, Sam’s notebook entry:

Certainly the sunniest & most beautiful day the Atlantic ever saw. But little sea — though what there is would be seriously felt on a smaller vessel. This one has no motion.

The phosphorescent waves at night are very intense on the black surface….Open fire place & big mantelepiece in great salon — imitation, not real; but a cosy & perfect counterfeit.

The haggard perplexity in the face of the All-Knowing is admirably brought out.

The perfect cleanliness of the rest of the ship is realized to you when you happen suddenly upon the violent contrast afforded by the smoking-cabin of the ler class, whose oil-cloth carpet has apparently never been washed or swept, & is littered with the burnt matches of a bygone generation.

The Lodge of Sorrow or the Towers of Silence — divans all around a great square occupied by silent folk in the squalmish stage. A piano in there — hated by the above [3: 641].

Note: in his July 21, 1891 letter to Gilder, Sam wrote, “We had good times with that young Boston clergyman on board ship.” The man is not further identified.

Robert Underwood Johnson for Century Magazine wrote to Sam proposing “a series of papers, or portion of a book, by you on your trip abroad, humorous, of course, and perhaps answering to the title “Mark Twain Abroad”, though we do not stickle on this point.” No price was offered, but solicited [MTP].

C. McC. Reeve on State of Minnesota World’s Fair Commission letterhead wrote to Sam that he was “such an admirer of” IA that he quoted “a number of passages” in his book (enclosed) How We Went and What We Saw, which he hoped would amuse [MTP].