May 28 Tuesday – Sam described another “curious sunset” in his notebook, and the Lohengrin opera program at Mannheim. “Opera is not a fashion, but a passion & it isn’t dependent upon the swells, but upon every body.” Sam remarked on getting the Frankfort daily the day it was printed, but the Heidelberg paper the day after [MTNJ 2: 91].
May 27 Monday – Sam wandered through the Heidelberg Castle grounds, then to his den and began work [MTNJ 2: 89].
May 26 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to Howells. He loved the setting, the view of the Neckar River, the old castle and the Rhine Valley. He also enjoyed the glass-enclosed porches, which extended from the bedrooms, where he could read, rest and smoke. He sent compliments on Charley Warner’s latest Atlantic article. Sam had been resting and waiting for “the call” to write, which came a week before.
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].
May 24 Friday – Sam, Livy and Clara Spaulding went to the opera (King Lear) at nearby Mannheim, some 30 minutes by rail [MTNJ 2: 46, 85n82]. Rodney concludes that Sam “reluctantly” accompanied the ladies, bearing a dislike for opera that stemmed “from his earliest exposure in America” [99]. From Sam’s notebook:
May 24—Theatre, Mannheim —Lear—performance began at 6
Sharp. Never understood a word—Gr grumbling—by & by terrific
May 23 Thursday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to Joe Twichell, enclosing a note to George P. Bissell & Co., Hartford to pay Joseph H. Twichell three hundred dollars and charge it to Sam’s account [MTLE 3: 52].
May 22 Wednesday – Sam read and commented on an incident in the Frankfurter Journal of this morning. He practiced entering observations in German [MTNJ 2: 84-5].
May 21 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
“At breakfast we saw the fields & villages or landslides (whichever they were) on the great sides of the Haard Mts, 35 or 40 miles away—the first time these mountains have shown anything but dark blue distance…Pink sunset through haze—black cloud with fringe circling over end of ridge at that town” [MTNJ 2: 84].
From Livy’s May 26 letter, referring to this day:
May 17 Friday – Sam’s notebook about the traditional dueling (“How I Escaped Being Killed in a Duel”) of Heidelberg college students:
One knows a college bred man by his scars.
This morning 8 couples fought—2 spectators fainted. One student had a piece of his scalp taken. The others faces so gashed up & floor all covered with blood. They only wear protecting spectacles [MTNJ 2: 82] (See chapter 7 of A Tramp Abroad.)
May 11 Saturday – Bayard Taylor wrote from Berlin, Germany to Sam.