Sunday, a. m., May 26, 1878.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--....divinely located. From this airy porch among the
shining groves we look down upon Heidelberg Castle, and upon the swift
Neckar, and the town, and out over the wide green level of the
Rhine valley--a marvelous prospect. We are in a Cul-de-sac formed of
hill-ranges and river; we are on the side of a steep mountain; the river
at our feet is walled, on its other side, (yes, on both sides,) by a
steep and wooded mountain-range which rises abruptly aloft from the
water's edge; portions of these mountains are densely wooded; the
plain of the Rhine, seen through the mouth of this pocket, has many and
peculiar charms for the eye.
Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (enclosed balconies) one
looking toward the Rhine valley and sunset, the other looking up
the Neckar cul-de-sac, and naturally we spend nearly all our time in
these--when one is sunny the other is shady. We have tables and chairs
in them; we do our reading, writing, studying, smoking and suppering in
them.
The view from these bird-cages is my despair. The pictures change from
one enchanting aspect to another in ceaseless procession, never keeping
one form half an hour, and never taking on an unlovely one.
And then Heidelberg on a dark night! It is massed, away down there,
almost right under us, you know, and stretches off toward the valley.
Its curved and interlacing streets are a cobweb, beaded thick with
lights--a wonderful thing to see; then the rows of lights on the arched
bridges, and their glinting reflections in the water; and away at the
far end, the Eisenbahnhof, with its twenty solid acres of glittering
gas-jets, a huge garden, as one may say, whose every plant is a flame.
These balconies are the darlingest things. I have spent all the morning
in this north one. Counting big and little, it has 256 panes of glass
in it; so one is in effect right out in the free sunshine, and yet
sheltered from wind and rain--and likewise doored and curtained from
whatever may be going on in the bedroom. It must have been a noble
genius who devised this hotel. Lord, how blessed is the repose, the
tranquillity of this place! Only two sounds; the happy clamor of the
birds in the groves, and the muffled music of the Neckar, tumbling over
the opposing dykes. It is no hardship to lie awake awhile, nights, for
this subdued roar has exactly the sound of a steady rain beating upon
a roof. It is so healing to the spirit; and it bears up the thread of
one's imaginings as the accompaniment bears up a song.
While Livy and Miss Spaulding have been writing at this table, I have
sat tilted back, near by, with a pipe and the last Atlantic, and read
Charley Warner's article with prodigious enjoyment. I think it is
exquisite. I think it must be the roundest and broadest and completest
short essay he has ever written. It is clear, and compact, and
charmingly done.
The hotel grounds join and communicate with the Castle grounds; so we
and the children loaf in the winding paths of those leafy vastnesses a
great deal, and drink beer and listen to excellent music.
When we first came to this hotel, a couple of weeks ago, I pointed to a
house across the river, and said I meant to rent the centre room on
the 3d floor for a work-room. Jokingly we got to speaking of it as my
office; and amused ourselves with watching “my people” daily in their
small grounds and trying to make out what we could of their dress, &c.,
without a glass. Well, I loafed along there one day and found on that
house the only sign of the kind on that side of the river: “Moblirte
Wohnung zu Vermiethen!” I went in and rented that very room which I
had long ago selected. There was only one other room in the whole
double-house unrented.
(It occurs to me that I made a great mistake in not thinking to deliver
a very bad German speech, every other sentence pieced out with English,
at the Bayard Taylor banquet in New York. I think I could have made it
one of the features of the occasion.)--[He used this plan at a gathering
of the American students in Heidelberg, on July 4th, with great effect;
so his idea was not wasted.]
We left Hartford before the end of March, and I have been idle ever
since. I have waited for a call to go to work--I knew it would come.
Well, it began to come a week ago; my note-book comes out more and more
frequently every day since; 3 days ago I concluded to move my manuscript
over to my den. Now the call is loud and decided at last. So tomorrow I
shall begin regular, steady work, and stick to it till middle of July or
1st August, when I look for Twichell; we will then walk about Germany 2
or 3 weeks, and then I'll go to work again--(perhaps in Munich.)
We both send a power of love to the Howellses, and we do wish you were
here. Are you in the new house? Tell us about it.
Yrs Ever
MARK.
There has been no former mention in the letters of the coming of
Twichell; yet this had been a part of the European plan. Mark Twain
had invited his walking companion to make a tramp with him through
Europe, as his guest. Material for the new book would grow faster
with Twichell as a companion; and these two in spite of their widely
opposed views concerning Providence and the general scheme of
creation, were wholly congenial comrades. Twichell, in Hartford,
expecting to receive the final summons to start, wrote: “Oh, my! do
you realize, Mark, what a symposium it is to be? I do. To begin
with, I am thoroughly tired, and the rest will be worth everything.
To walk with you and talk with you for weeks together--why, it's my
dream of luxury.”
August 1st brought Twichell, and the friends set out without delay
on a tramp through the Black Forest, making short excursions at
first, but presently extending them in the direction of Switzerland.
Mrs. Clemens and the others remained in Heidelberg, to follow at
their leisure. To Mrs. Clemens her husband sent frequent reports of
their wanderings. It will be seen that their tramp did not confine
itself to pedestrianism, though they did, in fact, walk a great
deal, and Mark Twain in a note to his mother declared, “I loathe all
travel, except on foot.” The reports to Mrs. Clemens follow:
*****
Letters to Mrs. Clemens, in Heidelberg:
ALLERHEILIGEN Aug. 5, 1878 8:30 p.m.
Livy darling, we had a rattling good time to-day, but we came very near
being left at Baden-Baden, for instead of waiting in the waiting-room,
we sat down on the platform to wait where the trains come in from the
other direction. We sat there full ten minutes--and then all of a sudden
it occurred to me that that was not the right place.
On the train the principal of the big English school at Nauheim (of
which Mr. Scheiding was a teacher), introduced himself to me, and then
he mapped out our day for us (for today and tomorrow) and also drew a
map and gave us directions how to proceed through Switzerland. He had
his entire school with him, taking them on a prodigious trip through
Switzerland--tickets for the round trip ten dollars apiece. He has
done this annually for 10 years. We took a post carriage from Aachen to
Otterhofen for 7 marks--stopped at the “Pflug” to drink beer, and
saw that pretty girl again at a distance. Her father, mother, and two
brothers received me like an ancient customer and sat down and talked
as long as I had any German left. The big room was full of red-vested
farmers (the Gemeindrath of the district, with the Burgermeister at
the head,) drinking beer and talking public business. They had held
an election and chosen a new member and had been drinking beer at his
expense for several hours. (It was intensely Black-foresty.)
There was an Australian there (a student from Stuttgart or somewhere,)
and Joe told him who I was and he laid himself out to make our course
plain, for us--so I am certain we can't get lost between here and
Heidelberg.
We walked the carriage road till we came to that place where one sees
the foot path on the other side of the ravine, then we crossed over and
took that. For a good while we were in a dense forest and judged we were
lost, but met a native women who said we were all right. We fooled along
and got there at 6 p.m.--ate supper, then followed down the ravine to
the foot of the falls, then struck into a blind path to see where it
would go, and just about dark we fetched up at the Devil's Pulpit on top
of the hills. Then home. And now to bed, pretty sleepy. Joe sends love
and I send a thousand times as much, my darling.