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 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 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 27 Monday – Sam wandered through the Heidelberg Castle grounds, then to his den and began work [MTNJ 2: 89].
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 30 Thursday – Sam again accompanied Livy and Clara Spaulding to Mannheim for an opera, this time Lohengrin [MTNJ 2: 46; 92]. From Sam’s notebook:
May 30— Mannheim—Went to a shivaree—(this is John) polite name, Opera.
In midst of it John who had not moved or spoken from the beginning, but looked the picture of patient suffering, was asked how he was getting along. He said in a tremulous voice that he had not had such a good time since he had his teeth fixed.
June – Sam wrote “The Lost Ear-ring,” which was not published in his lifetime [Fables of Man 145- 148]. Note: source notes: “The tale begins with the date 6 June 1878, and the verso of manuscript page 13 bears the heading ‘Schloss Hotel Heidelberg, June 5’…The title was supplied at the time Bernard DeVoto was the Editor of the Mark Twain Papers.”
June 1 Saturday – Francis D. Millet wrote from Paris to Sam. “What good fortune that you are over here. I certainly appreciate your suggestion that I meet you in Germany—it will be no trifle that deters me from coming where you are if it be agreeable to you all. I want to see you all very much for I feel as if you owned a part of me.” He was hard at work on a book [MTP]. Note in file: “Note SLC’s reference to this letter in ‘Mental Telegraphy’ (Harper’s, Dec. 1891).”
June 2 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel, Heidelberg to Moncure Conway. Sam had misgivings about giving his 17-year-old nephew, Samuel Moffett, a letter of introduction to the Conways, which he had done while visiting Fredonia. Sam asked them not to let the Moffett boy inconvenience them and suggested they simply give him a card of admission to the British Museum.
June 3 Monday – Sam wrote a one-liner from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to Andrew Chatto, asking him to send a copy of Innocents Abroad and Roughing It [MTLE 3: 59].
June 4 Tuesday – Sam moved his den to “the very pinnacle of the Kaiserstuhl 1400 or 1500 feet up in the air above the Schloss Hotel, & 1700 above the Rhine Valley—which it overlooks” [MTLE 3: 64]. (See entry of June 16; letter to Warner).
From Sam’s notebook: “Rented & paid for a room for a month at the pretty little Wirtschaft under the Königstuhl” [MTNJ 2: 94].
June 5 and 6, 1878 addition – Fables of Man, p.144 gives this for “The Lost Ear-ring”: “The tale begins with the date 6 June 1878, and the verso of manuscript page 13 bears the heading ‘Schloss Hotel Heidelberg, June 5’”.
June 8 Saturday – Clara Clemens and family celebrated her fourth birthday. The family custom was to give both girls presents on either’s birthday. They received dolls, books, cups, and flowers. In the afternoon they rode donkeys up a hill and enjoyed a picnic of bread, butter, and strawberries [Willis 119; Salsbury 79].
June 9 Sunday – Sam wrote in his notebook that there was a big crowd at dinner for Whitsunday, or the seventh week after Easter. Since arriving in Germany, Sam gathered material to make fun of the German language. He wrote “Fruendschaftsbezeigungen—24 [letters]” in his notebook, then some examples of how little sense gender made when applied to some words [MTNJ 2: 97].
“Shipped from Heidelberg June 9, Case M.C. 346 gross 204 pounds, containing 1 table and carved works” [291].
June 10 Monday – Sam wrote from the Königsstuhl in Heidelberg (near his rented den) to Bayard Taylor. His letter revealed his new daily routine: He only ate and slept at the hotel; in the mornings he walked to the…
June 11 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
30 or 40 little school girls at the Wirthschaft to-day when I left, all drinking beer at the tables in the open air. What an atrocious sight to the total abstinent eye!
I think that only God can read a German newspaper.
The chief German characteristic seems to be kindness, good will to men.
The best English characteristic is its plucky & persistent & individual standing up for its rights.
France seems to interest herself mainly in high art & seduction.
June 14 Friday – Sam wrote in his notebook the price of a “suit of clothes—$18—cheaper than stealing.” He wondered if half the country was near-sighted, or did they wear glasses for style? [MJNJ 2: 102].
June 16 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to Frank Bliss. Sam noted progress on the new book, hoping to be about half finished with the draft by the middle of July, 250 or 300 pages. He would send the manuscript:
“…as soon as our touring around will permit, & let you issue it in the winter or hold it till Spring, as shall seem best” [MTLE 3: 62].
June 20 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Shipped from Frankfort June 20, case marked B & C, containing crockery” [MTNJ 2: 291].
June 22 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:
Man hanging to boat in Neckar—people rescued him.
From a German paper:
“What constitutes official disgrace in America?”
Ans—God knows.
There is only one thing which is worse than H[eidelberg] coffee: that is H cream.
Superstitions lasting from old mythology
Must not climb a tree on St John’s Day (22d June?)—nor go on the water 8 days before up to 8 days after. [MTNJ 2: 103]
June 26 Wednesday – Livy was “startled” to discover passages in Sam’s notebook where Captain Wakeman would visit “various heavens.” Duckett writes:
“this may have been the earliest appearance of a protagonist cast down from his high estate which Bernard De Voto traced as it developed from a dream sequence and reappeared obsessively….in the determinism of ‘What is Man?’ privately published in 1904” [179].
June 27 Thursday – Sam had received Howells’ June 2 reply to his May 4 Frankfort letter, in which Howells wrote: “Tell me about Capt. Wakeman in Heaven, and all your other enterprises” [MTHL 1: 233]. Howells’ letter included news about Hay, Osgood, Waring, and Aldrich, briefly mentioning those traveling overseas.
June 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Heidelberg to William Seaver, one of the old New York journalism bunch Sam met in 1872.
Dear Old Seaver: / There be humorists in Germany. With infinite difficulty I have translated the following from a Mannheim paper:
June 29 Saturday – In Sam’s notebook:
“We usually spend from 5 to 7 pm in the grounds, knitting, embroidering, smoking, & hearing the music. Pretty warm now” [MTNJ 2: 104].
July 1 Monday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg to his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister, Pamela Moffett, after receiving their letter with news of Samuel Moffett’s departure for Europe. Sam wrote of cheap prices for rent, a suit of clothes and language instruction.