Germany Tramp: Day By Day

May 3 Friday – The Clemens family traveled to Frankfort where they rested a day or so [MTNJ 2: 46]. “The prettiest effect is a cloud-ceiling in fresco in our parlor at Frankfort” [74].

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. 

May 4 Saturday – Sam wrote from Frankfort on the Main, Germany to Howells. Sam felt a relaxing sense of escape, described as only he might:

“Ah, I have such a deep, grateful, unutterable sense of being ‘out of it all.’ I think I foretaste some of the advantage of being dead. Some of the joy of it. I don’t read any newspapers or care for them.”

May 5 or May 6 Monday – The Clemens family arrived in Heidelberg, Germany and stayed at the beautiful Schloss Hotel, which overlooked the old castle with its forest setting, the flowing Neckar River, and the distant valley of the Rhine [MTLE 3: 50]. Rodney notes that the hotel’s “family-style accommodations suited the needs of the party.

May 6 Monday – Livy wrote on May 7:

May 7 Tuesday – Sam wrote from the Schloss Hotel in Heidelberg, Germany to Bayard Taylor. Sam wrote in German [MTLE 3: 51].

From Livy’s pen:

May 8 Wednesday – Edmond About (1828-1885), French novelist and journalist wrote from Paris in French [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the margin., “Autograph of Edmond About. Preserve it.”

– The Clemens family was up at 6 AM and traveled all day. After twelve hours they arrived in Munich, Germany. At 7 PM they arrived, in “drizzle & fog at  the domicil which had been engaged for us ten months before” [MTLE 3: 94].

– Sam wrote from Munich, Germany to  Howells, giving him the itinerary  of the trip from Rome. At first they did not much like the place:

  – Sam “took a workroom at 45 Nymphenstrasse—Frau  Kraze.” He made a purchase on the “Tobacco shop on corner under Hotel Bellevue,  opp. Karls Thor” and noted amounts spent [MTNJ 2: 283].

November 20 Wednesday – In Munich, Sam wrote letters to Joe Twichell and Susan Warner. Sam had lost his Switzerland notebook and wrote that if it remained lost he wouldn’t try to write the volume of travels he’d planned.

November 27 Wednesday – Livy’s 33rd birthday.

November 30 Saturday – Sam’s 43rd birthday. Sam told a story or gave a speech (often there was very little difference) at the American Artists Club in Munich. Just what Sam said has been lost. Sam’s notebook:

November – In Sam’s  notebook there’s an entry “Little Pedlington” which refers to John Poole’s   1839 book, Little Pedlington and the Pedlingtonians. Gribben quotes E.  Cobham Brewer, calling this “an imaginary place, the village of quackery and  can’t, egotism and humbug, affectation and flatter” [553].

Sam noted “Turganieff’s Visions”  and “Visions, a Phantasy, by Tourganieff—in the Galaxy”  in his notebook [MTNJ 2: 244, 247].