August 11 Tuesday – The Clemens party left Bayreuth for Marienbad, Bohemia (Germany). Sam wrote of his last attendances at the Wagner festival operas:
TUESDAY. — I have seen my last two operas; my season is ended, and we cross over into Bohemia this afternoon. I was supposing that my musical regeneration was accomplished and perfected, because I enjoyed both of these operas, singing and all, and, moreover, one of them was “Parsifal,” but the experts have disenchanted me. They say:
August 11 Thursday – Yola Zurelli wrote from San Francisco to Sam, sending a MS for his comment — the left side of the letter has been water damaged to the point of illegibility [MTP].
August 11 Friday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Livy wrote to Mary C. Shipman (Mrs. Nathaniel Shipman), and Sam “smuggled” in a paragraph at the end. Livy thanked Mary for a visit from Mary’s children, and had just received a letter from Mary’s older son, Frank Shipman. She thanked her for the letter and regretted they could not have seen more of the children, and remarked how meeting home people abroad did away with “preliminaries.”
August 11 Saturday – Sam wrote a letter of recommendation for Mrs. Mary B. Willard to G.W. Knowlton, of Knowlton Brothers, Watertown, N.Y., who considered sending a “young lady,” perhaps a daughter or relative, to Willard’s school for American girls in Berlin, Germany, where Clara Clemens had studied. Sam provided Willard’s address.
She will be well cared for, well taught, & will have the comradeship of excellent girls of her own nationality [MTP].
August 12 Wednesday – The last day of the Bayreuth, Germany Wagner festival. Sam was in Marienbad, Germany a few days later, writing from there on Aug. 15. For a humorous account of the trip from Aix-les-Bains to Bayreuth, read Sam’s third letter to McClure’s Syndicate, “Playing the Courier,” which first appeared in the Illustrated London News on Dec. 19 and 26, 1891.
August 12 Friday – At the Hotel Kaiserhof in Bad Nauheim (which Sam called “Bath No Harm”), Sam answered a letter (not extant) from Laurence Hutton, who was planning some traveling.
August 12 Saturday – Critic magazine XX, p.111 ran “Stockton on Mark Twain,” an unsigned article [Tenney 21].
Sam’s notebook: “Ordered of Neighbor, Aix-l.-B, 1 evening dress; 1 morning, dark-gray; 1 ½ dress coat. Will tell him where to send them” [NB 33 TS 25].
August 13 Saturday – At the Hotel Kaiserhof in Bad Nauheim, Sam answered a letter (not extant) from Augustin Daly.
I have your letter of June 28, from Chicago. It followed me here — no, beat me here a day or two, for I was in Chicago myself when you wrote it — spent the 28th there under a fictitious name, & left the 29th.
August 14 Monday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Sam wrote William Walter Phelps and entered the fact in his notebook. The letter is not extant:
Aug. 14 Wrote Brer P. shall want him to sit down & talk early-history & let me make notes & ask questions there or in N.Y., I to sail 10 days hence if cholera news does not augment [NB 33 TS 25].
August 15 Saturday – In Marienbad, Germany Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, responding to questions Chatto formed from a newspaper article.
Yes, the newspaper items stated the idea of the novel correctly. Title, “The American Claimant.” Chief character, Colonel Mulberry Sellers….Yes indeed, we shan’t go home without a run over to England first. That will be a year hence [MTP].
August 15 Monday – On this day or the next, the family took a trip to Frankfort On the Main, Germany, a short seventeen miles to the south from Bad Nauheim [Aug 9 to Ross].
August 15 Tuesday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam. The first part of the letter is a record of Sam’s account with the firm; recent sales of all books yielding £734.9.4; an Italian translation of P&P is mentioned, and the firm was on “tip-toe” expecting a new story [MTP].
August 15 Wednesday – Sam sailed for Southampton, England on the Paris [N.Y. Times, Aug. 15, 1894 p.7 “Departures for Europe”]. The New York newspapers reported on Sam’s departure, including the Times and the Sun. The Times, not always the friendliest paper to Mark Twain, included the story within one about Mayor Thomas F. Gilroy sailing for Europe. Comparing adjectives and treatment of the two articles reveals a subtle but definite contrast.
August 16 Sunday – In Marienbad, Germany Sam wrote to Clarence C. Buel of the Century Co., explaining his cable of the previous day.
August 16 Tuesday – The Clemens family was in Frankfort on the Main, Germany. Sam later wrote about meeting old friends here:
The Phelpses came to Frankfort & we had some great times — dinner at his hotel & the [Frank] Masons, supper at our inn — Livy not in it. She was merely allowed a glimpse, no more. Of course, Phelps said she was merely pretending to be ill; was never looking so well & fine [MTP, Sept 18 to Crane]
August 16 Wednesday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Sam finished his Aug. 14 to Frederick J. Hall:
Aug. 16. I have thought, and thought, but I don’t seem to arrive at any very definite place. Of course you will not have an instant’s safety until the bank debts are paid….I am coming over, just as soon as I can get the family moved and settled. SLC.
August 16 Thursday – Sam was en route aboard the American Line S.S. Paris for Southampton. An article published Sept. 9, 1894, p.5 and datelined August 22, described the voyage and the weather:
On one day only rain interfered with deck amusements and promenading, a dense fog enshrouded us off the banks and at subsequent short periods further eastward. …Aside from this disagreeable feature, we have had an exceptionally smooth voyage, the glassy surface of the ocean disturbed alone by swells from our huge steamship.
August 17 Monday – In Marienbad after a few days Sam took part in the baths.
The crowds that drift along the promenade at music time twice a day are fashionably dressed after the Parisian pattern, and they look a good deal alike, but they speak a lot of languages which you have not encountered before, and no ignorant person can spell their names, and they can’t pronounce them themselves.
August 17 Wednesday – The Clemens family was in Frankfort on the Main, Germany.
August 17 Friday – Sam was en route aboard the American Line S.S. Paris for Southampton. The second day at sea the Paris made 423 miles distance [Ibid.]
August 18 Tuesday – In Marienbad:
August 18 Thursday – An envelope only survives from Susy Clemens’ letter to Louise Brownell, in Frankfort on the Main, Germany, which proves the family did make the Aug. 15 or 16 trip there as Sam’s Aug. 9 to Ross speculated [MTP].
August 18 Friday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, who had sent money. After praising them he advised of his travel plans.
I sail from Bremen in the “Spree” Aug. 29, & shall expect to be gone some little time; but I take one of the daughters [Clara] along for company.
I mailed the new book [PW] to New York Aug. 9, & shall expect it to appear serially. I hope you will admire it when you come to put a back on it in your London bindery [MTP].
August 18 Saturday – Sam was en route aboard the American Line S.S. Paris for Southampton. The third day at sea the Paris made 429 miles distance [Ibid.]
August – Harper’s Monthly ran Sam’s sketch, “Luck” [Wilson 189]. Sam wrote the story in 1886 [MTB 842] after hearing it from Joe Twichell. Sam thought the story was “too improbable for literature” and so had put it aside until forced by the financial swamp of the typesetter to comb his materials for saleable material. The sketch would be reprinted in Merry Tales (1892).