The German language became one of the interests of the Clemens home
during the early months of 1878. The Clemenses had long looked forward
to a sojourn in Europe, and the demand for another Mark Twain book of
travel furnished an added reason for their going. They planned for the
spring sailing, and to spend a year or more on the Continent, making
their headquarters in Germany. So they entered into the study of the
language with an enthusiasm and perseverance that insured progress.
There was a German nurse for the children, and the whole atmosphere of
the household presently became lingually Teutonic. It amused Mark Twain,
as everything amused him, but he was a good student; he acquired a
working knowledge of the language in an extraordinarily brief time, just
as in an earlier day he had picked up piloting. He would never become
a German scholar, but his vocabulary and use of picturesque phrases,
particularly those that combined English and German words, were
often really startling, not only for their humor, but for their
expressiveness.
Necessarily the new study would infect his literature. He conceived
a plan for making Captain Wakeman (Stormfield) come across a copy of
Ollendorf in Heaven, and proceed to learn the language of a near-lying
district.
They arranged to sail early in April, and, as on their former trip,
persuaded Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira, to accompany them. They wrote
to the Howellses, breaking the news of the journey, urging them to
come to Hartford for a good-by visit. Howells and his wife came. The
Twichells, Warners, and other Hartford friends paid repeated farewell
calls. The furniture was packed, the rooms desolated, the beautiful home
made ready for closing.
They were to have pleasant company on the ship. Bayard Taylor, then
recently appointed Minister to Germany, wrote that he had planned to
sail on the same vessel; Murat Halstead's wife and daughter were listed
among the passengers. Clemens made a brief speech at Taylor's “farewell
dinner.”
The “Mark Twain” party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, Miss
Spaulding, little Susy and Clara (“Bay”), and a nurse-maid, Rosa, sailed
on the Holsatia, April 11, 1878. Bayard Taylor and the Halstead ladies
also sailed, as per program; likewise Murat Halstead himself, for whom
no program had been made. There was a storm outside, and the Holsatia
anchored down the bay to wait until the worst was over. As the weather
began to moderate Halstead and others came down in a tug for a final
word of good-by. When the tug left, Halstead somehow managed to get
overlooked, and was presently on his way across the ocean with only such
wardrobe as he had on, and what Bayard Taylor, a large man like himself,
was willing to lend him. Halstead was accused of having intentionally
allowed himself to be left behind, and his case did have a suspicious
look; but in any event they were glad to have him along.
In a written word of good-by to Howells, Clemens remembered a debt of
gratitude, and paid it in the full measure that was his habit.
And that reminds me, ungrateful dog that I am, that I owe as much to
your training as the rude country job-printer owes to the city boss
who takes him in hand and teaches him the right way to handle his
art. I was talking to Mrs. Clemens about this the other day, and
grieving because I never mentioned it to you, thereby seeming to
ignore it or to be unaware of it. Nothing that has passed under
your eye needs any revision before going into a volume, while all my
other stuff does need so much.
In that ancient day, before the wireless telegraph, the voyager, when
the land fell away behind him, felt a mighty sense of relief and rest,
which to some extent has gone now forever. He cannot entirely escape
the world in this new day; but then he had a complete sense of dismissal
from all encumbering cares of life. Among the first note-book entries
Mark Twain wrote:
To go abroad has something of the same sense that death brings--“I am
no longer of ye; what ye say of me is now of no consequence--but of how
much consequence when I am with ye and of ye. I know you will refrain
from saying harsh things because they cannot hurt me, since I am out of
reach and cannot hear them. This is why we say no harsh things of the
dead.”
It was a rough voyage outside, but the company made it pleasant within.
Halstead and Taylor were good smoking-room companions. Taylor had a
large capacity for languages and a memory that was always a marvel. He
would repeat for them Arabian, Hungarian, and Russian poetry, and show
them the music and construction of it. He sang German folk-lore songs
for them, and the “Lorelei,” then comparatively unknown in America. Such
was his knowledge of the language that even educated Germans on board
submitted questions of construction to him and accepted his decisions.
He was wisely chosen for the mission he had to fill, but unfortunately
he did not fill it long. Both Halstead and Taylor were said to have
heart trouble. Halstead, however, survived many years. Taylor died
December 19, 1878.