August 16 Sunday – In Marienbad, Germany Sam wrote to Clarence C. Buel of the Century Co., explaining his cable of the previous day.

When I undertook to write 6 newspaper letters it seemed a trifling contract; but I have now been away from home 2½ months, & to-day only 3 of the letters are written & none of them mailed. I soaked my rheumatic arm 5 weeks at Aix-les-Bains, but never could use a pen at all until the fifth week, & then only an hour or so at a time. The pain all left me; but after a fortnight it returned & I am trying these baths.

Sam wrote that he was disabled to the point that he could not contract any more writing [MTP]. Note: Sam’s third letter he called, “Marienbad — a Health factory,” (or “An Austrian Health Factory”) much like the first two. Since he’d only been in Marienbad a few days, either he wrote it in a few long sessions or he began it in Bayreuth. He would mail the first three letters on Aug. 24. Powers calls this letter “slightly lame” and writes, “The Illustrated London News eventually got hold of them [the six letters] and printed all but one for free” [MT A Life 539]. Note: Robert McClure, brother of Samuel S. McClure, managed a London office for the Syndicate, which explains the appearance of Sam’s Europe letters in the Illustrated London News. As such, the paper was included in the Syndicate, and they did not “smouch” the letters for free, though it’s not clear if McClure’s agreement with Sam allowed him to publish in England. See Mar. 2, 1892 for Robert McClure’s letter to Sam.

This place is the village of Marienbad, Bohemia. It seems no very great distance from Annecy, in Haute-Savoie, to this place — you make it in less than thirty hours by these continental express trains — but the changes in the scenery are great; they are quite out of proportion to the distance covered.

…

A couple of hours from Bayreuth you cross into Bohemia, and before long you reach this Marienbad, and recognize another sharp change, the change from the long ago to to-day; that is to say from the very old to the spick and span new; from an architecture totally without shapeliness or ornament to an architecture attractively equipped with both; from universal dismalness as to color to universal brightness and beauty as to tint; from a town which seems made up of prisons to a town which is made up of gracious and graceful mansions proper to the light of heart and crimeless. It is like jumping out of Jerusalem into Chicago.

…

In Bavaria everybody is in uniform, and you wonder where the private citizens are, but here in Bohemia the uniforms are very rare. Occasionally one catches a glimpse of an Austrian officer, but it is only occasionally. Uniforms are so scarce that we seem to be in a republic. Almost the only striking figure is the Polish Jew. He is very frequent. He is tall and of grave countenance and wears a coat that reaches to his ankle bones, and he has a little wee curl or two in front of each ear. He has a prosperous look, and seems to be as much respected as anybody [“Marienbad — A Health Factory”].